


Believe In Me

by LolMouse



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Action & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Mystery, Philosophy, Pride Parades, Recreational Drug Use, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25341574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolMouse/pseuds/LolMouse
Summary: A chance encounter during a heist. A slow, cautious dance of trust. A mystery threatening to tear the city apart with elemental fury. It's enough to make a girl question everything she believes in.
Relationships: Implied Jinx/Raven/Starfire, Implied/Referenced Robin/Starfire, Jinx/Raven (DCU)
Comments: 100
Kudos: 190





	1. Chance Encounter

The back door of the jewellery store opened in a small shower of pink sparks. Alarms failed to alarm, and the alarms meant to notice the failure of the first alarms dreamt their quiet electronic dreams undisturbed.

Jinx smiled. She got poetic under the full moon, apparently. A quick snap of her finger fried the camera inside. She wasn't trying for a clean entry. There was some crisis or another, the streets were empty, and speed was more important than subtlety.

She walked inside, casually stroking her finger on the safe in the workshop, popping it open easily, letting her remove the contents. Into the storefront she went, skipping happily, doing the same thing to the cash register. Then she took in the vista before her with a quiet whistle.

Platinum and gold engagement rings in all sizes were displayed prominently in the centre of the showroom. On its left, a wall of watches and delicate pendants and silvered chains; on its right, earrings and bracelets fitted with everything from polished granite to the pinkest diamonds. Jinx's personal favorite, naturally.

She took out her cleverly designed foldable silent thieves' backpack. She could arrange everything into it so it wouldn't make a single clinking noise if she wanted. But not tonight.

She smashed a display cabinet's glass with a hex, took out the tray inside and dumped it unceremoniously into the bag. Another followed it quickly, Jinx humming pleasantly as she danced from display to display.

As she was about to smash another one, her eye caught a glimpse of something amazing. She walked to the earring display and almost gasped. The studs themselves were nothing special, aside from being real silver - perfect for her nickel allergy. It was the stones in them that caught her fancy. One was polished obsidian, so shiny that she saw her dark reflection in it. The other was billed as a pink sapphire, lustrous in the dim light. Both were in the shape of teardrops. They weren't the most valuable stones there, but Jinx instantly knew she had to have them. She took them out gently and put them in a safe hidden pocket in her dress. Then she turned around.

The entire store in front of her was torn apart as a massive fist of iron and stone tore into the building. Jinx felt the change in air pressure before she saw it coming. She registered the field of black energy holding it back a second later, and the girl in the dark blue cloak holding it steady a second after that, flying in the air right next to her.

Raven, of the Teen Titans, spared Jinx one quick glance. Her eyes glowed white, and her voice was strained.

"...Oh. It's you. Hi."

Jinx blinked. "Uh. Hi?"

"...I'm too busy to deal with you. Lucky for you. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

The power Raven conjured with her words was enough to throw the fist back, and she followed it to keep doing battle.

Jinx felt a little dazed, and a numbness spread across her body as she realised something. If she hadn't moved to admire those studs, she'd have been crushed. A shiver threatened to overtake her. Dust fell out of her hair.

"Yeah. Lucky me." She grinned, hefted the bag onto her back, and followed the trail of destruction outside. There might be an opportunity here, and she wasn't about to miss it. It was time to push her luck.

She took off in the direction of the battle, standing far enough back to watch. The creature Raven was fighting was huge, walking along on its massively oversized fists like a gorilla. In her mind she thought of it as a golem or an elemental, except it was bound and chained in ribbons of iron bands. Raven was landing blows, but was constantly forced to dodge or shield against the surprisingly quick attacks from the monster, unable to land a decisive hit or pull some clever magic trick.

Jinx's tactical mind analysed the situation in an instant, a boon of many hours of training, and she frowned. Where was her team? One on one Raven might defeat the beast, but this clearly wasn't an ideal situation. Had the Titans lost control of it?

Then Raven swooped down to the mouth of an alley and shielded it, taking hit after hit from the giant monster as it bellowed in fury. It made no tactical sense to Jinx. She would simply get beaten down. What was she doing?

The answer came when she heard the distinctly un-Ravenlike scream from the alley. She was protecting someone. Of course she was. It looked like a young homeless kid with a colored stripe in their hair who hadn't gotten the memo to evacuate. Raven apparently couldn't let up the shield long enough to even fly or teleport away.

Why did heroes have to be so dumb?

Jinx snapped her fingers almost before she'd realized she'd made a snap decision. A pink wave of energy tore up the concrete road and crested at the earth-monster's feet. The creature looked dumbfounded for a moment before the road collapsed beneath it, trapping its feet below. Jinx moved closer, flipping out of the way of another horrifyingly quick attack, and shot a hex at where the fist would hit. It too buried itself into the ground, causing the creature to thrash in an attempt to get loose.

"Hey!" She shouted at Raven. "Make your move if you're going to!"

Raven didn't even acknowledge her before shouting out her magic words and firing a black bolt of energy into the creature's chest. It buried itself inside, and dark energy began to flow out of the cracks in its craggy skin. It bellowed one last time before simply coming apart, falling into a heap of dirt, stone and discarded iron.

Jinx walked up to Raven. "Creepy. What does that do to a person?"

"...you don't want to know," Raven said, out of breath and on guard against Jinx's approach.

"Chill, gloomy girl." Jinx looked closer at the kid. It seemed to be a girl, though she wasn't one to assume these things, dressed in a torn hoodie and jeans. "Hey kid, you okay?"

"I'm not a kid, I'm fourteen!" A feminine voice replied indignantly.

Jinx and Raven looked at each other. "...They're fine," Raven drawled. "I'm surprised you care."

"I'm surprised you aren't taking me in now that you won," Jinx replied, mentally cursing herself for bringing that up.

"There's other creatures to defeat," Raven shrugged. She walked off, limping noticeably and grimacing.

"I just knocked over a jewellery store!"

"...Oh no. You got some metal and rocks. Let me put saving lives on hold to rescue inert matter." The sarcasm dripped off the sentence so hard that Jinx couldn't help giggling. Raven flew, gently testing the air and nodded to herself. "If you care so much, do me a favour."

"Wha?" Jinx was deeply confused.

"Get the kid somewhere safe and something to eat. Then we're even."

"Even? I saved your life!" Even if she wasn't sure why.

"...And you knocked over a jewellery store. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Are you even in a fighting condition? You're barely standing upright."

"Are you going to go defeat creatures of fire, water and air that are fighting the Titans and threatening to tear the city apart, Jinx?"

"Hell no," Jinx said.

"Then do I have a choice? If not me, who will?"

Jinx couldn't find a witty comeback to that.

"...Thought so. See you around." Raven muttered and disappeared in a flurry of shadow, and then all was quiet.

Jinx spat in frustration. "She can be such a... whatever. Hey kid. You okay?"

The kid, still looking at the air where Raven had been in awe, snapped out of it and looked at Jinx instead.

"That was so cool!"

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Come with me if you're hungry. Try to keep up."

A perk to Jump City was that no matter the emergency, some dinky little diner would always be open. You knew things were really bad when you couldn't get a burger and stale pie at two a.m. anywhere in the city.

The kid was busy scarfing down her second burger. Jinx picked at her order of small fries, nibbling them like celery sticks, feeling stupid the whole time. Her burger was untouched.

"So Kate," she asked. "You're new to Jump City?"

Kate swallowed her mouthful before answering. "Got here two days ago. I've been hitching rides to the coast from the Midwest."

"Why go to the trouble? There isn't any more opportunity here than there, believe me."

"Just, uh. Bad family."

Jinx nodded. She couldn't relate but she didn't have to to respect it. "Still, all the way to Jump? You could have stopped in any number of cities."

"Uhm." Kate seemed uncomfortable, but forged ahead. "I was kicked out for, uh, being gay. And Jump and San Fran are supposed to be more okay with that?" She ended the sentence on a question, looking at Jinx hopefully.

Jinx stared back, then sighed. "Okay. That's fair. You're not wrong there."

Kate smiled a little, and the tension in her visibly lifted. "You seem okay with that too."

"Sure." She picked listlessly at her fries again. She could relate a little more this time. "Found a place to stay yet?"

The uncomfortable squirm was answer enough for Jinx. "Yeah okay," she sighed to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Gimme a second, will ya?"

Jinx got up and walked to the counter. "Hey, can I borrow a pen?"

The man whose name tag identified him as 'Salman' nodded and flipped a pen out of his apron.

"Thanks," she said, picking up a napkin. She sat down to write on it, hesitated, then pushed her uneaten burger at a still apparently hungry Kate. The kid was halfway through it before Jinx was even done writing.

"Okay, here's what you do, Kate. First, take this." She took her loot bag and hoisted it on the table, pushing it to the kid. Then she handed over the napkin. "Go to this address and tell the guy there that Jinx sent you. He'll turn this bag into money for you."

Kate stopped devouring the third burger for a moment and peeked into the bag. Then she looked at Jinx in shock. "This is-!"

Jinx silenced her with a finger on the mouth. "Not out loud, kiddo." Then she took out some of the cash register money. "This will get you a room with a shower long enough for the money to get to you, and that should be enough to rent a place here for a while. Ask the guy for a fake ID while you're at it. No one hires underage kids unless it's for something bad."

Kate looked like she was on the verge of tears. "But why?"

"Hell if I know. Finish your burger and get outta here."

Kate scarfed down the rest of the food, got up and gave Jinx a hug before she could stop her.

"Hey, quit it. I don't like getting sentimental."

"I won't forget this," Kate said.

Jinx looked at her back as she left the diner and sighed again, picking at the leftover fries.

"That kid. She have no home?" Salman's voice startled her.

"Yeah. Why."

"Then you no pay," he said. "Good things come back around, yeah?" He didn't wait for a reply, instead opting to enter the kitchen in the back to watch the news.

Jinx sat still for a while. She felt like an idiot. "Do they now," she said.

"...Sometimes," came Raven's voice.

Jinx almost banged her knees on the table in shock. "Holy shit. How did you-?"

Raven didn't answer, instead opting to sit where Kate had just been. "I take it things went okay."

"Whatever. The kid isn't hungry anymore and I lost the loot," Jinx lied.

Raven looked at her, the eyes boring into her own, clearly seeing the lie. Jinx refused to back down.

"...So she's going to be fine, then," Raven said, not pushing it.

"Yeah. I guess. And the city is safe?"

"...Yeah. I guess."

Raven sat there quietly, snaking her hand out of her cloak to grab a fry to nibble for herself. Jinx couldn't help but find the image funny. The strangely non-antagonistic mood stretched on. They slowly finished the plate like that together, saying nothing.

"...It's never enough," Raven said quietly.

"What isn't?"

Raven seemed a little startled, as if she hadn't realised she'd said it out loud. She frowned, but continued. "The... fighting."

"I mean..." Jinx tried to grasp at her point. "It's what your type does, right?"

"Why do you think we do it, Jinx?"

"Pff, I don't know. Fame. Fans. Girls. Why?"

"...Not that those aren't true for some of us," Raven said wryly, "but for most of us it's a sense of justice that drives us. And stopping a monster from destroying a city is necessary, but it's not enough to achieve justice."

Jinx glared at her. "Why not? You saved a life today. Or does a homeless girl not matter?"

"...The opposite, actually. It matters more. I prevented a death. And without you, that life would still be alone and on the streets."

"What are you getting at?" Jinx didn't like the heat creeping into her face.

"If I fight because I care about justice," Raven explained, softly tracing circles into the table with her finger, "and my fighting doesn't make the world more just... then why do I keep fighting?"

"What was it you said? If not you, who else?"

Raven grimaced.

"Not to sound ungrateful," Jinx said, "but this sounds like a topic for your friends. And I'm not your friend. You are here to take me in, right?"

Raven seemed surprised. "No? I already said I wouldn't."

"You said you care about justice and you're not taking me in for knocking over a jewellery store? Are you okay? Head still on the right way after that fight? Robin wouldn't hesitate."

"...Am I wearing a yellow R on my chest?"

"No?"

"Then surely I'm not Robin. And... that is part of why I can't talk with him about this."

Jinx leaned forward curiously. This was a rare chance indeed; Raven, of all people, was doubting herself. Maybe she could use that. "Alright, lay it out then. Why are you not taking me in?"

"At first, it was a matter of priority. Minimize harm first. End danger. Then it was just... the nature of the crime. The more I considered it, the less sense it made to me."

"Yeah?"

"You robbed some jewels. The owner is insured and will be reimbursed for the destruction of the shop and the proceeds of your theft have gone to give a homeless girl a bigger chance than I, or society, could have given her. I don't see what part of that needs punishing."

Jinx blinked as she took that in, not bothering with the lie for now. "So... in your mind, that's a more just outcome than arresting me and getting the jewels and junk back?"

"I…" Raven sighed. "Robin wouldn't even think about it. That's because he ultimately believes in the system, and so defending it is automatically just. It just... isn't that way to me. Especially tonight."

"You know, I totally get that. The system is bullshit. Everyone on my side knows that." Jinx found herself nodding along. "What about talking with the rest of your lousy do-gooder friends?"

Raven glared at her.

"That's the price of having this talk with me, sugarcakes."

Raven seemed to visibly swallow her annoyance. "Starfire's people appreciate grand gestures in and of themselves as a form of justice. It's hard to explain. Beast Boy doesn't have the brain cells needed to think about it that hard, he just instinctively wants to do good by everyone. And Cyborg..." Raven paused. "Of all of us he's most like me, but..." She floundered. It was a weird thing to see Raven at a loss for words.

"He's used to it," Jinx finished for her. "It's bullshit, but it's the system we've got, and it's better than most other options, and it might slowly get better so it's worth keeping it up. Am I close?"

Raven nodded, her eyes curious.

"I made kissy faces with the jerk, I'd like to think it wasn't all lies."

Raven winced. "You got his opinion right, I suppose."

"So you don't believe in the system. Gonna go all supervillain and take it over and rearrange it to your vision? I'm down for that." She grinned at her own half-joke. Raven would certainly be better than Slade as a boss.

"I am smart enough to know I don't have every answer," Raven said wryly. "And if one homeless girl is enough to make me like this, what would becoming a conqueror do? No thank you."

"I notice you didn't even question whether you could take over the world if you wanted."

Raven just smiled a small, sly smile, her eyes glowing strangely under her hood. 

"Okay," Jinx said, suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of topic. "Another option; be a real vigilante. Like, in the old sense. Not upholding the system, but doing your own justice. Not Robin, but Robin Hood."

Raven looked into her eyes.

"Think about it. You can have your cake and eat it. Fight the big threats and then redistribute some wealth. Win-win." A small part of her felt like she'd be down with that too.

Raven looked into her eyes, then shook her head. "...What do you believe, Jinx?"

"Me? I'm out for me. That's it."

"Clearly it isn't."

Jinx glared, "A one time thing doesn't a moral philosophy make."

"There is no such thing as an exception that proves a rule," Raven retorted. "You proved yourself wrong. So what do you believe?"

Jinx felt herself getting heated. "I don't have to answer that. We're not friends. We're not sharing our innermost thoughts at a slumber party."

"...This is true. You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Jinx glared. "So... I'm only answering because I want to, capiche?"

Raven nodded, that annoyingly sly knowing smile creeping back. It didn't help Jinx that it was really a very pretty smile, too.

"I think the system is bullshit. I think it's not worth upholding. I don't care how much of it I tear down to get what I want."

"...Even when it might leave someone homeless?"

"Don't be a smartass." She huffed. "It used to be for the highest bidder and no care at all, right? We were properly brainwashed little soldiers. Then I had to strike out on my own and it turned out I had a care. Mercs are just another part of the system I hate. An ye harm none, do what ye will."

Raven's eyebrows rose. "I didn't take you to be Wiccan."

"When it suits me," Jinx said, slightly surprised that Raven recognized the quote. "And that's the point. It has to suit me. Sometimes that means it suits me to help a homeless kid fleeing a bad family in the Midwest because the system was bullshit to her too."

Raven took that in. "...I can relate to that."

Jinx had no doubt Raven could. "And here's a trick of the thief's trade for you, free of charge. When you knock over a store or bank, it harms none. Stolen credit cards? Same. It's all insured, like you said. Every person affected gets their value back and the only price paid is by an insurance company that will pay slightly less profits that quarter to some investors. Companies aren't people. I didn't hurt anyone tonight."

Raven took that in. "...I didn't stop you because I didn't see where the harm was," she concluded. "You're not wrong."

Jinx nodded. Of course she wasn't. "And then I keep all the loot for myself, unless it suits me. So there."

"...That is interesting, because one heist like this pays well, unless I'm mistaken. Even after expenses."

Jinx shrugged. "What about it?"

"And you keep pulling heists. What do you do with it all?"

"Maybe I just squander it," Jinx said, not liking where this was going. "Or save it for retirement."

"...Or on homeless girls who need it more than an insurance company does?" Raven grinned. "Your habits don't seem too expensive, even for someone who appreciates fashion like you do. Not that I see you in the latest often."

"Says little miss drab." She looked away. "You can't prove anything and I'm not saying more." It wasn't like she even took money or valuables from all of the heists to begin with.

"Fair enough." That sly smile again. Jinx was beginning to hate it. It was too cute. "I suppose that leaves one question."

"I'm not answering," Jinx warned in vain.

"Why don't you fight the threats like I do?"

Jinx stared at her. "What are you, crazy? I'm not risking my neck."

"Not even if it saves a life like tonight?"

"You do it and you resent it. What makes you think I wouldn't? Upholding the system is bullshit. Heroes are part of it." 

"...Do you hate the city that much?" Jinx must have been imagining the disappointment in Raven's voice.

"Nah. I like it around here. I'm like... Not ungrateful that you keep it in one piece or anything, I guess? It benefits me too."

Raven seemed to take that in. "It does," she said slowly. "And by extension... everyone else in it. And then people benefit from each other."

She grimaced. "You can't rely on people being kind. They really aren't."

"...Aren't they?"

Jinx glared harder.

"...A lot of people think humans are fundamentally selfish. I don't, despite having known their worst impulses and foulest individuals. I trust enough in people to be loyal and kind, even if just to a small group of friends, and the occasional stranger. That kind of loyalty can save the world."

"I don't agree. What's your point?"

"I suppose... I have my answer," Raven said.

"What?"

"Defending the city matters because, even if I can't help a person in need further, nothing says they can't be given a chance somewhere else, even by someone else doing their own brand of justice. If I have to fight... let it be not for the system, but because of the humans living in it, helping each other as humans do. That can be my reason."

Jinx groaned. "I did not just give a hero a reason to keep being a hero. Shit. Why am I like this."

"Congratulations," Raven drawled. "Your small act of random kindness reminded me that they can come from the most unlikely places. Aren't you proud."

"I'll never perform another again," she lied.

"...Thank you. And sorry for imposing on your time." Raven moved to get up and leave.

Jinx grabbed her by the hand before she could go and looked her in the eye. "Thanks for... understanding more than most heroes do. It's pretty cool of you." Then she withdrew her hand, embarrassed at herself.

Raven paused, and nodded. "...Give me a second." Black energy suddenly enveloped the pen that still lay on the table. It floated in the air, meeting a napkin Raven had also summoned.

"In case you ever... feel like talking again," Raven explained, writing something on the napkin and handing it to Jinx. 

"No booty calls. Not without a proper date." Jinx hoped her joke would cover up what she was feeling from Raven's implication.

"Duly noted," Raven said in her sarcastic tone. "I'll remember to dress nicer for your delicate fashion sensibilities."

"If you even can," Jinx said, grinning.

Raven raised her hand in farewell. "...Until next time, Jinx."

Jinx raised her hand goodbye and watched Raven go. Then she looked at the napkin and did a double take. Her heart raced.

"Did she seriously just give me her phone number?"


	2. Spicy

The armoured transport car was flipped on its side when Raven arrived, the guards already securely bound and gagged. The heist was almost over within three minutes of it being reported, the valuables emptied into a giant canvas bag in Mammoth's hands.

Jinx's crew ran a slick operation, as usual. Too bad for them that some of the Titans had been in the area, with Beast Boy and Starfire mere minutes away by air.

"Titans, Go!" Said Robin. Their own team cohesion was also smooth, each Titan instantly moving to counter the HIVE crew they were most suited for. Cyborg to Mammoth. Robin to Gizmo.

Her to Jinx.

She compartmentalized the complicated emotions that followed that stray thought and tried to spot her. The witch was usually in the thick of things, but not today. She physically and mystically scanned the area, but came up empty.

She heard the magic before she saw it and barely threw up a shield to dissipate it as it impacted on her back, making her shoes skid across the pavement. The mocking voice that followed it left no doubts.

"What's the matter? Did I Jinx you that badly?"

Raven turned around, surprised. Jinx was standing casually on top of the armored car. How had she missed her? 

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" The words made her soul quiver and burst forth, flipping the armored car right side up in an attempt to shake Jinx off her feet. Jinx simply used the momentum to casually flip and turn in the air, landing on top of a nearby mailbox.

"Aw, thanks for the assist! Let me send you my regards." Jinx snapped her finger, hexing the mailbox. It burst open, spilling out letters into the air. Raven flew towards her, but stopped. Somehow, Jinx had vanished in the flying cloud of letters and was nowhere to be seen or felt once again.

Raven frowned. Something else was going on. She quickly estimated what Jinx would do next. Flee? Not without the loot. Strike from a distance? Raven would feel it coming too easily.

No. Jinx would walk up to her, hit her in the back and brag.

Raven focused her will and gathered her power around her. At what she hoped would be the right moment, she released it in a wave of force all around her. Sure enough, she heard Jinx gasp in surprise and fall backwards.

"...Found you," Raven said, not waiting for Jinx to recover before encasing her hand in her energy and striking at the witch. Jinx flipped onto her feet easily and countered, but was on the backfoot now, forced to back away and counter Raven's attacks.

"Too bad that the odds are still against you, Raven!"

"Not when you're so predictable."

"Yeah? Guess I better shake things up!"

Jinx gathered her own power as Raven had, and she quickly erected a shield against it. Instead of the wave of magic she expected, however, Jinx's hex went into the earth, cracking the concrete in all directions. Raven lost her footing and took off into the air. Cyborg and Robin were not so lucky, falling down long enough for their opponents to disengage and fall back.

"Lets get outta here!" Shouted Mammoth. Raven turned again to where Jinx had been, but found nothing but the epicentre of the seismic force she'd unleashed. She kept the shield up, not letting her guard down for a second.

A batarang flew through the air and ripped the bag of valuables open, spilling its contents on the ground. A dismayed Mammoth tried to grab something, but a blast from Cyborg pushed him away.

"Crud! It's the other Titans! We gotta scram!" Gizmo was right; from above, Starfire and Beast Boy descended into the fray. 

Five pink hex-bolts emerged seemingly from nowhere. Four struck their marks, bowling the Titans over. One impacted on Raven's shield harmlessly. She looked around and spotted Jinx yet again, waving casually at her.

"Guess you Titans tend to beat the odds. Until next time!" Then the witch moved her hand to her ear, mimicking a phone with her thumb and finger, and mouthed something at Raven. Something that unmistakably spelled out 'I'll call you.' Then she ended her silent message by blowing her a kiss with a cheeky wink.

Raven couldn't contain the emotion this time, desperately hoping that none of the other Titans had spotted that. She instead opted to charge straight at Jinx, who flipped over a taco cart and hexed it, covering Raven in sauces, shells and unnamable Taco meat. She recovered quickly, but Jinx had disappeared again in the flurry of street food. She growled in frustration.

The Titans picked themselves up, assessed the damage, and freed the guards. Beast Boy ambled over to Raven.

"Was it just me," he said, "or was that goodbye a little spicy?"

Taco ingredients slipped off her hood and onto the ground, and she groaned.

The debriefing left her in a foul mood. Robin had noticed Jinx's new disappearing act too and didn't openly blame Raven, but she could taste the frustration he emoted at letting the HIVE get away and could hardly miss how it surged when he looked her way. The fact that she hadn't gotten to shower first, leaving her smelling like salsa past its sell-by date for all of it, had not helped.

She emerged from the bathroom wrapped in her fluffiest blue towel and found her communicator blaring its tune on her desk. She flipped it open. Video call from Unknown Caller, through the secure untraceable line that Robin had made for them all. It could only be one person.

She accepted the call. "Hello, Jinx."

"Hey, Raven! Oh. Wow. I guess now I know why it took you so long to pick up. Giving me a show, are you?"

Raven had never felt entirely comfortable with phones and screens for communication. Talking with someone without being able to sense their emotional responses just felt wrong to her. Nonetheless, she had no trouble imagining the emotion Jinx probably thought she was concealing behind a joke. She wasn't sure what it meant yet, not completely, but she hadn't disliked it.

"...You're the one who made me dirty," she said, calculating her words for maximum effect. Naturally, Jinx giggled.

"Not yet I haven't. Did I get you into a lot of trouble?"

Raven picked up a hairbrush and began brushing her hair, tilting her head up. She knew Jinx would get a full view of her neck, and Jinx's expression did not disappoint.

"No. It wasn't perfect, but we stopped the robbery. For now, that was good enough."

"Hey! Robbery is violent. This was larceny. Those guards were not attacked for their property."

"...Surely they were not tied up of their own free will."

"Nah, that's at least two dates before I do that." Jinx winked saucily again, and Raven would have paid handsomely to know what she was feeling right then. "But we didn't rob their property via threat or intimidation, it wasn't theirs to begin with. That's an important distinction in this jurisdiction, you know."

"I doubt they'd be comforted by that."

"Right. You do care more about the people than the loot, I remember. I wasn't out to hurt them."

"...I know. If you had been, they would have been hurt before we got there." 

Raven realized what she was doing. She was reassuring Jinx that she had no hard feelings. And going by Jinx's expression, she was relieved. She was apologizing to Jinx for the crime Jinx had committed, and felt no conflict at all in herself. Was that dangerous?

"Anyway," Jinx said. "You gave me this number in case we wanted to talk and I don't want to talk about this over a phone so… can we uh, meet up? Maybe at that pizza place you guys like so much."

Raven's stomach growled and she grimaced. Smelling of food for most of an hour had left her hungry. Jinx had, of course, noticed, going by the overly innocent smile on her face.

"...You know what restaurants we like?"

"Opposition research. Strategy one oh one."

Raven considered her options. The Titans didn't have pizza parties after defeats, so it would be safe. She could eat what was sure to be a sullen dinner at home with a tense Robin and angry Cyborg broadcasting their mood over the table… or she could have pizza with Jinx, perhaps risking an ambush or other ulterior motives.

She had a suspicion that even if the dinner at home had been joyful, she'd still go for pizza. And she wanted to figure out what that meant. There was only one logical option for finding out, risky or not; if it was a trap, it was best to spring it.

"...Alright. They know us there, but I assume you'll want to dress casual."

"Unless you want the staff there to blab about us having dinner."

She finished brushing her hair and nodded. "I suppose it's a date, then."

"Damn, Raven. I was gonna make that joke."

"...Just like your fighting. Too predictable."

"Ouch!" Jinx's smile said that there was no hurt taken. "See ya then, Raven."

Raven ended the call with a nod. It was time to see what the risk she had taken at the diner was going to pay out.

She still had no idea what she wanted from it.

Raven boggled at Jinx's outfit. Tight fitting pants, red converse shoes and bare ankles, and - of all things - a denim jacket festooned with badges, pins and patches in a chaotic mixture ranging from rainbow Pride flags and unicorns to stylistic references to various villains like Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and others she did not recognize. And, curiously, Wonder Woman.

But most boggling of all was the bright yellow T-shirt with bold black letters spelling 'I **** on the first date.' Going by Jinx's emotional reaction and grinning face, it was achieving its intended effect.

"I see I have stunned Madame with my fashion," Jinx said, practically cackling as she glanced at Raven over her heart-shaped pink sunglasses. If nothing else, they helped conceal the color of her eyes.

"...Stunning is the correct word. Is that shirt a threat or a promise?"

"Could be both. Up to you."

Raven smirked. "I have to say I wasn't expecting this look from you."

"That's the point of not being recognised. Everyone is going to know who you are! A blue hoodie? Really?"

"...You'd be surprised. You have to take the order, though. They'll know my voice."

Jinx certainly drew some looks, but with her pink hair down, restrained by what looked like industrial strength rubber bands, no one seemed to question who she was. And standing next to her meant not a soul so much as looked at Raven. It was, in a way, exactly how she liked it.

They got their order in - it turned out they both liked the spiciest option on the menu - and it arrived quickly, the staff giving no indication that they recognized her. The open air seating didn't feel very intimate, but there weren't many people in today.

"You know," Jinx said, settling gingerly in her seat - her butt apparently still hurt from when Raven had blasted her away. "I was kind of hoping I'd see your face today? Guess you dodged that bullet somehow."

"...Is that all?" Raven took down the hood and shook her hair loose, looking directly into Jinx's eyes. A complex cocktail of feelings bubbled from Jinx as she took Raven's face in, difficult to analyse or describe, but the blush gave Raven the clue as to the gist of it. She let Jinx look at her longer than was appropriate, and smirked.

"...You're staring."

Jinx's brief panic felt like a balloon popping. "Uh, well, better get it all in now before I never see it again."

"Never say never."

Jinx sucked in her breath, but seemed to force herself to calm down. If her intent had been to fluster Raven with that shirt, that had backfired completely by now.

It also answered a few questions Raven had. She wasn't discomfited; she had felt this from a lot of people. She was just sure now that it was what Jinx was feeling, too. It was, in its Jinxy way, honest.

Now to learn what that meant. She took pity on Jinx and changed the topic.

"That was a clever spell you used today."

"I bet you're dying to know how it works," Jinx teased.

"...Not really."

"Oh, you're a good liar."

"I'm just realistic about my chances. You won't tell me how it works if I ask. It's too much of an advantage." She smiled slightly. "Strategy one oh one."

Jinx practically squirmed in her seat.

"I'm sure it was a very clever trick," Raven said, baiting her. "I certainly was impressed. Perhaps it is some kind of perception filter I've never seen before. But you wouldn't share a secret like that, so there's no point in asking."

Raven bit into a slice of pizza and chewed it slowly, savoring the taste as it mixed with Jinx's emoted desire to explain her trick.

"It wasn't a perception filter," Jinx blurted out. "It was luck."

Raven smiled. Hook, line, sinker. "You either made yourself luckier to evade detection, or made it so that anyone looking for you would always be just unlucky enough to miss you."

"The latter, " Jinx said, her emotions indicating she was pleased with herself.

"That's a clever use of your aspected magic. Your power is very focused, so you have to get creative with it."

"Right?" Jinx was practically bouncing in her seat. Her excitement was palpable. "I modified a curse I made for an ex-boyfriend. I call it the Get Lost Hex. It made him completely unable to find me even by accident. Figuring out how to extend that to every consciousness in a wider area was a little tricky."

"Normally that would take a ritual, or a large magic circle encompassing the affected area, but you didn't use either. You didn't bind it to an object either."

"Nope! That's the clever part. I instead put it on myself so it would affect anyone who looked at me."

"That's odd," Raven said, genuinely curious. "Surely that defeats the purpose. A perception filter would simply edit you out of the mind's eye after the fact, but your spell is trying to insure you're not spotted in the first place."

"Think of it like this," Jinx explained. "It's like camouflage. You can look directly at a tiger in a jungle and not see it because of its stripes, and it doesn't need to edit your mind to do that. My spell is like that, something just makes it harder to recognize it's me. Maybe you just happen to look barely past me, or I just fade into the background in just the right way. Like lost keys that you end up finding in an incredibly obvious spot you've looked at before. Less invasive, see?"

"...Alright, fine. That's good. I wouldn't have thought of that." Jinx beamed at Raven's compliment, which made her curious. "Why are you even telling me this?"

"I dunno," Jinx shrugged. "None of the guys get it when I explain it. I never get to discuss magic with anyone. I'm mostly self-taught. It feels nice to have someone know what I'm talking about."

"And you're not worried I'll find a way to counter it?"

"I already assumed you would eventually. I just enjoy the challenge of coming up with new tricks to beat you."

Raven sipped her soda and grinned at her. "...I don't hate it either. I'm just…" she carefully considered her words. "Impressed."

"Of course you are. I'm impressive."

She smirked. She was beginning to enjoy Jinx's humor. Worrying. "I'm not self-taught. I have centuries of knowledge backing my sorcery. And yet, here we are."

Jinx's mood surged with suspicion. "What, a street witch can't beat whatever wizard school you went to?"

Here came the delicate balancing act. Raven didn't want to come off as condescending, or sound like she was minimizing Jinx's achievements. How was she supposed to explain Azarath without doing either?

She shelved the burning question of why she was sparing Jinx's feelings at all.

"...Clearly, a street witch can. That is part of why I'm impressed. You're up against a lot of accumulated mystic knowledge and power and you run rings around it."

The soothed feeling radiating from Jinx washed over Raven, telling her she'd succeeded. Jinx, naturally, pretended to be offended anyway.

"Big sorceress living in her giant tower, with centuries of wisdom in her head, can't even beat one witch who sometimes doesn't know where her next meal comes from. Poor dear." She took another slice. "You're buying, by the way. Did I mention that? I'm tapped, thanks to you lot. That car was going to pay the food bill."

Raven felt herself frown. Paying wasn't the problem. It was the lack of meals that caught her attention. "...Am I going to be paying for a lot of meals?"

"I'll figure something out tomorrow. Don't think too hard about it." A mixture of annoyance and gratefulness wafted from Jinx; Raven interpreted it as a desire not to be pitied mixed with pleasure at being worried about. She decided to drop it.

Still. It stuck with her.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any to ask… what did you want to talk about?"

Jinx frowned, and her slit pupils constricted strangely behind those ridiculous glasses. It was fascinating to watch. Raven wondered if Jinx had nictitating membranes, like a snake or a cat, but she couldn’t stare into Jinx’s eyes long enough to find out.

"I was hoping to get there naturally but I guess that wasn't happening," Jinx said. "It's just… I've been thinking about something you said that night at the diner."

Raven nodded, encouraging her.

"You believe in people. And I just… I don't understand why. Or how. I just can't believe in people like that."

"...Not even your crew?"

"Gizmo will stab my back the minute he gets a better gig. Mammoth will just let me rot when my luck goes bad enough one day. We all have to eat and live and get cash for what we want and need and it's a big ol' rat race. It's been that way since school. And that's just how things are."

"...It's not," Raven said, unable to help it.

"See, that's what I'm talking about! You really believe in people. Why? What's different?"

"Because…" How much could she say? How much did she want to? "I've already had to rely on help at my lowest point. And I got help, despite thinking I never would, and that I didn't deserve it, and it saved… many lives." All of them, in fact.

"You? You had a low point?" Jinx's feelings bubbled with a little disbelief, and perhaps a hint of offense. "Like how?"

"...It may not be what you're thinking of. To be clear, I've never lacked for resources. I've never worried about food or shelter. I never had to compete the way you describe. But even then I didn't always believe in kindness. I did not realize then how much I've had in my life."

Jinx narrowed her eyes, her constant level of suspicion more prominent now, but she was clearly listening.

"Then one day, I had to face a situation I could not stop or control. I had to stand against something far bigger than myself. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and the most desperate I've ever been. And… I failed. I gave up, and let evil win."

Raven found she couldn't meet Jinx's eyes. The emotional response was… strange. Indistinct. It was possible her own emotion was clouding it.

"That's when I learned what believing in someone can do. My friends believed in me, refused to back down, helped me make things right. I believe in people because they made me believe."

"Okay, well." Jinx cleared her throat. "Before we move on… could you stop doing that?"

"What?" Raven looked up. Her power was leaking and crawling from her, dimming lights and dampening moods. She quickly regained control and turned everything back to normal. "...Sorry."

"No sweat. Anyway. I'm not gonna ask details. It's just… something to take in."

"...If I had not had a secure life," she continued, "Not knowing where my next meal was coming from, not known where I could sleep, I wouldn't be where I am. I understand that now. I would probably steal and… stuff, too." It had been a painful, humbling lesson, even though it had freed her.

"And stuff," Jinx repeated, amused.

"...You know what I mean." Raven wished she had her hood up.

"I getcha." Jinx leaned over the table and gently patted Raven's head. "There, there."

"...if this were any other day and topic, I would dump you in the bay for that."

"I'm amazed you didn't already." Jinx sighed. "Well, that is an explanation. I'm not sure it works for me, but I guess it’s what I got." She ate more of her pizza, Raven noticing that one of her own slices had mysteriously gone missing. She decided not to comment.

"...You really don't have anyone like that? That you completely trust?"

"Nope. Didn't occur to me."

"That is… incredibly depressing." Nevermind that this had been her own life for most of it.

"Hey, you said it yourself. Opportunity is a big part of it. I guess the big takeaway for me is that you don't think you're better than us thieves and stuff-doers."

"...Except at magic." She punctuated this with a grin.

"Oh, you're on. If you haven't countered my trick by the time we fight again, you're paying for the next dinner."

"Deal." Apparently they had decided they would have more dinners together, and Raven didn't mind.

"Sooo," Jinx said teasingly. "Where's the big speech?"

"...What speech."

"Now that you've said we're the same, and you know that I need friends, where's the big pitch about becoming my friend and turning me into a hero because you see good in me?" She punctuated this with a dramatic pose, as if she were a maiden being rescued by a knight.

"...No."

"Aw! You don't want to be my friend? I guess I'll be stuck forever in a life of crime. And stuff-doing." 

There was a curious edge to Jinx's sarcasm, a kind of genuine desire for… something. Perhaps Jinx didn't know what herself.

"...I wouldn't be sitting here talking with you if I thought you were a bad person to be around."

Jinx's emotions spiked with elation. "That sounds pretty friendly to me."

"...Enough to trust me?"

Jinx blinked, and frowned. "I mean…"

"It takes time. I'm not hurt if you don't trust me. I am a Teen Titan, you are a thief, and we are on opposite sides."

Jinx's pleased feeling all but disappeared. "Yeah. Guess that's still true."

"...It will take at least a few more dates."

Jinx looked at her, some of her mood returning. "You're not one of those easy girls, huh?"

"I don't… four asterisk, on the first date."

“Hm.” Jinx gave Raven a devious grin. “I’ll show you what it stands for if you answer one more question from me.” Jinx’s slit eyes shifted again in that fascinating way, looking directly into hers. 

Raven kept her emotions in check. They seemed very keen on knowing what Jinx meant. “...Alright.”

“Do you trust me?”

Raven considered this. Did she? She was slow to trust. She always had been. At night, when sleep wouldn’t come, she would remember someone she withheld trust from. Wondering always whether things might have been different if she’d acted differently towards someone she only in retrospect called a real, true friend. Someone who had only earned that by paying a terrible price after betraying them. It would have been easy to never trust again, but in truth, she often blamed herself for making that betrayal easier.

Raven had long ago decided that there wouldn’t be another Terra in her life. But was Jinx worth extending trust to? Was this thing clouding her judgment? They didn’t even share a team. Her logical side won out, whispering the obvious answer: there was only one way to find out.

“...I trust you… enough.” She sighed. Logic also meant she had to be cautious.

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to sit with you, to talk with you, enough to believe that you won’t ambush or attack me, that you’re not lying to me or trying to manipulate me. Although I am learning I can’t trust you with my pizza.”

“You can’t prove nothin’.” The crust of her stolen slice disappeared into her mouth.

“...And I trust you enough to do more of this again sometime.” Whatever this was.

Jinx smiled - A genuine smile, with emotion behind it. It looked nice on her. Then she opened her mouth and let out an immense burp of almost Cyborgian proportions that went on a little too long to seem believable for her lungs.

Raven stared at her.

"That's what I do on a first date," Jinx winked, deftly picking up and finishing off Raven's last slice.

Raven couldn’t contain her smile, and was forced to hide her mouth behind her hand as her shoulders started shaking. Jinx wiggling her eyebrows did not help. She couldn’t remember the last time something had made her laugh like this. Beast Boy doing that didn’t make her laugh like this.

“...You’re terrible.”

“Hardcore lifelong criminal with no table manners, that’s me.”

A commotion from below the roof terrace caught their attention, ruining the mood. There was a loud booming sound. A voice screamed.

Raven looked at Jinx, who shrugged. "Go do your thing, Raven. And thanks for the chat."

“...You can come, if you like.”

Jinx opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. “Not this time.”

Raven nodded and flew down to the street, letting that suffice as a goodbye. 

By the time she had resolved the danger of runaway remnant water elementals wreaking havoc in the street and returned to pay the bill, Jinx was long gone.

"...But she admitted it was a date," Raven whispered to herself. Things had certainly gotten more complicated.


	3. Pride

The parade area was cordoned off. Everything was peaceful, for the moment; parade goers waited for the event to begin and the floats to pass, sitting in the overfull roadside cafes or lining the barriers in excitement, every surface and piece of clothing seemingly festooned with rainbow colors.

Jinx really wished she had reserved a table to sit at. She had already been standing for an hour and the parade hadn't even started. Not that she was here to watch it. She wasn't in disguise today, and there were people who recognized her, but no one was running or reporting her today. She wondered how much of it was the fact that not a single police officer was in sight.

"Hello, Jinx."

Jinx smiled when she heard the familiar voice. "'Sup, Raven." That date… dinner… thing, they’d had at the pizza place, was still in her thoughts. She’d made up her mind on a few things that day, most importantly that she’d have to see Raven again.

"Nothing special," Raven said, dressed in her usual. "What is up with you?"

Jinx gestured around her. "Pride."

Raven looked unamused. "...Yes, I can establish that from context. Here to watch?"

"Nope. Here to make sure it's safe."

Raven's eyes bored into hers, an intense gaze that threatened to make her already strained knees give way.

"...Really."

"Yes, really."

"...Why."

Jinx narrowed her eyes. "Do I have to explain it?"

"...I wouldn't mind an explanation, but no. I… like your stockings."

Jinx blinked, then remembered. "Oh. Uh, thank you." She looked down at her feet to cover her temporary embarrassment, bringing those stockings into view; pink, purple and blue stripes in a repeated pattern. Today was the one day she could or would wear them.

She wondered if Raven knew what they meant, but the thought was interrupted by Raven flipping open her communicator.

"Robin here."

"I met Jinx at my post. She says she's here to help protect the parade."

"Do you trust that?"

"Yes," Raven said, very much not reacting to Jinx making faces at her.

"I’ll trust your judgment, but be careful. Keep me posted. Robin, out."

Raven flipped the communicator off and grinned. "...You really are incorrigible."

"Can't correct what's already right. The Titans are here to protect the parade too?" She started walking down the street, and Raven settled into a rhythm with her.

"After the organisers declined police presence, we unanimously decided to help. The policeman's union and the commissioner are not happy about it."

"Good. No cops at Pride."

"...Ah. I think I get it now. It suits you."

Jinx huffed. "Yeah. Fine. I'm doing a good civic thing, because fuck the cops. You got me. I'm by myself, by the way. The boys don't care one way or the other."

"...Starfire has been incredibly excited about it ever since she learned what the parade represents. It's been insufferable. She's a few blocks down covered in rainbows and pansexual pride badges."

Jinx grinned at the delightful mental image. "Oh she must look utterly garish."

"Not even Robin could bear it, but she’s a big hit with the crowd. She was halfway done preparing a float for us before we stopped her."

"I bet that would raise questions. And if I know you, I know you'd rather not deal with that."

"...Correct."

"And everyone says enough stuff about Robin already, so it wouldn't help."

"...Says what?" Raven seemed genuinely confused.

Jinx flashed a smile as her answer, but couldn't help her curiosity. Sure, they'd sat down and talked and had food together and joked about dates, but… it would be nice to have confirmation. Some sign that Raven was definitely in the market, as it were. But Raven was in her stodgy blue cloak as always.

For her part, Jinx had made up her mind about what she wanted when she’d seen Raven laugh.

"We… did sponsor a float, though,” Raven said hesitantly.

Jinx gaped. "Wait, seriously?"

"...After the police dried up, so did the corporate sponsors. The organisers banned them in response, but lacked funds after that. They were talking about maybe not holding the parade at all. So we… sponsored a float. Maybe the most expensive float of all time."

The Teen Titans secretly funding the entire parade on the downlow was way beyond anything Jinx had expected to hear.

"That's probably the coolest thing I've ever heard from you guys. No corps at Pride." She raised her fist at Raven, and to her delight she bumped it softly.

"...We have our moments."

"Still gonna kick your ass."

"You will try."

A voice rang out from a roadside cafe, interrupting their banter. She recognised it from somewhere.

"Hey! Jinx! Raven! Hi!"

"...Oh. It's that girl." Jinx looked to where Raven had indicated. Sure enough, it was Kate, the homeless girl they had rescued, wearing a rainbow coloured knit cap. She was sitting with another girl and was beckoning them over to spare seats at their table.

"Shall we? I don't know about you, but my feet are killing me."

"Uh…" Raven sounded like she was about to protest, but Jinx moved to the cafe anyway. To her continued delight, Raven followed.

"Hah~! It feels good to sit down. How ya doing, Kate?"

"I'm doing great! See, Em? I told you they knew me."

The person identified as 'Em' was wearing a matching colourful cap to Kate's, but hers had a pink, white and blue striped pin on it. "Hey," she said, in the most disaffected uncaring teen tone of voice Jinx had ever heard.

"Hey," said Raven, almost perfectly emulating it. She and Em shared a nod, and that was seemingly enough for them both.

"Peas in a pod," Jinx muttered. "Are you two here together, Kate?"

"Yup! I got a girlfriend!" She took Em's hand and held it. "And a place to stay, and I'm back in school, and it's working out great! We met a couple of days after I got the uh… help, and we got along really well. And here we are!"

Em grunted, still above it all, but held the hand in hers tightly.

Kate smiled hesitantly. "Are uh. You guys here together?"

"...Only accidentally," Raven said. “We were just both in the area.”

"Wow, weird coincidence. I mean with Jinx's stockings and your little pin thing I thought…" She pointed at Raven's neck.

Jinx craned her neck to look. She had assumed that Raven hadn't changed anything about her outfit, but now that she looked closely, she realized that the gemmed clasp holding her cloak closed was different. The gem in it reflected three colors.

Blue, purple and pink. Like her stockings.

Jinx tried to fight the heat in her face. There was absolutely no question that Raven knew what the Bisexual Pride flag colors on her stockings meant, now. And she'd called them nice.

"...Very observant, unlike Jinx. It was just a... happy coincidence."

At Raven's words, Em suddenly perked up, looking at them both more intently.

“I’m plenty observant,” Jinx huffed, suddenly much less comfortable with her choice of sitting down with the kids. “You’re completely secure then, Kate? No like, upcoming problems?”

“Nah. I get to stay with her parents.” She nudged Em again, who still hadn’t taken her eyes off the two metas. “They’ve been super understanding. I’m so lucky to have found Em.”

Em smiled a tiny, Raven-like smile. “Dork.”

“It’s not often I get to see someone again like this,” Jinx said. “Feels nice, actually. Did you order yet?”

“Nah, we just got here!”

“My treat,” Jinx and Raven said simultaneously. Then they glared defiantly at each other.

Em’s stare somehow got more intense. Kate seemed a little frightened at the sudden tonal shift.

Jinx sized Raven up. “You think you’re ready for me?”

“...Anytime.”

“H-hey, is this going to get dangerous?” Kate asked.

Jinx and Raven didn’t answer, having initiated a staredown neither wanted to back off from.

Jinx put out her fist, and Raven put hers out. They raised them three times, then quickly opened them. Jinx had put out the first two fingers on her hand, forming scissors. Raven had opened hers completely, forming paper.

“My treat,” Jinx proclaimed triumphantly, mock-cutting Raven’s palm. Raven sulked in response.

Em opened her phone and started typing something furiously. “I have to write this,” she mumbled.

“What’s that about?” Jinx asked.

Kate smiled. “Oh, she takes notes for her fanfiction all the time. I think it’s cute.”

“...What kind of fanfiction?” Raven asked suspiciously.

Kate blanched. “Uhhhhh, hey, here comes the waiter!”

"-And Raven was so pissed when she found out I'd been trying her clothes on. It's not like blue is even my colour."

"...Nobody goes into my room."

"Oh, was I the first girl you ever had in there? I'm honored."

Raven groaned, Kate laughed, and Em was still scribbling notes furiously, becoming more animated with every anecdote.

"Why are all your stories about you two being enemies, though?" Kate asked.

Em answered before either of the metas could. "They're on opposite sides of the law," she muttered. "Everyone around here knows that. Their teams are always fighting each other."

"Hey, wait," Kate said, confused. "Then why have you guys been, like, helping each other and chatting and walking together every time I've seen you?"

"...She makes me laugh," Raven deadpanned.

Jinx didn't even try to contain her laughter. "Never a dull moment around you, Raven."

"Like a married couple," Em whispered, probably louder than she intended, as Kate recovered from her own bout of laughter.

"...But really, we don't know ourselves-" Raven didn't get to finish that thought as her communicator rang. She opened it. "Raven here."

"The Parade is about to start. Give me a visual survey of the area from above." Robin's voice was tense.

Jinx snorted. "Wow, he doesn't even say hello. Rude." Em and Kate sniggerred.

"I take it Jinx is behaving," Robin said, unperturbed.

"...She never is. I'll report when I'm done. Raven, out." She closed the comm and got up. "I'll be right back. Try not to steal my food this time."

"No promises," Jinx replies with a wink at the other girls.

"This time," Em whispered under her breath. Not everyone knew Jinx had good hearing as part of her nature, but it was coming in handy.

Kate gaped as she watched Raven walk some distance away and take flight. "I gotta go use the girl's room," she said. She bent over and gave Em a kiss on the cheek first.

"Dork," Em replied.

Just like that, Jinx and Em were alone. Jinx immediately stole a piece of Raven's small cake, using Raven's fork, and watched Em intently.

"So tell me," Jinx said. "You're not some kind of cape chaser, are you?"

"No," Em replied flatly, staring right back, apparently having anticipated the question. "I don't write about real people."

"So what's with the note taking on me and Raven?"

Em glanced from side to side. "I just like some story themes and you are inspiring me," she said.

"What story themes are those?"

"Friendship ones." Evasive eyes again.

"What kind of friendship?"

Em glared. "You're gonna think it's weird, so fine. Whatever. I like enemies becoming friends or lovers. You two are like known opposites around here."

Jinx nodded. She'd suspected something like this. "So, you write that a lot?"

"Yeah?"

It was Jinx's turn to glance side to side. "So… got any tips?"

Em stared at her. "...Are you. Actually serious?"

"I'm at least only half joking. I have no idea what I'm doing."

Em nodded once, slowly. "Just go for it."

"Huh? Like how?"

"Just do what you feel like. When I met Kate I knew pretty quickly that I liked her so I just went for it and took her hand and here we are."

"What, just like that?"

"The worst she'll do is not hold it back. If she doesn't you didn't have anything to lose to begin with."

Jinx nodded slowly as well. "Yeah. Okay. Like a leap of faith."

"Just believe I guess." Em shrugged. "I mean you kind of passed the big hurdle already."

"What's that?"

"She's talking to you at all."

They had split up shortly after Raven had returned from above, since the parade was starting. Em had given Jinx a singular nod and a pronouncement that she was 'cool' before being dragged off by an enthusiastic Kate.

Music played and flags were waved, and not a single troublemaker was in sight, leaving her and Raven free to enjoy the sights. Jinx could practically sense Raven maintaining situational awareness, but she still watched the floats curiously, like someone who had never been to a parade before. Jinx could barely see it herself, her eyes always drawn to Raven's hands.

As they watched the parade floats pass by, Jinx swallowed hard and took her chance. She reached out to where Raven stood, found her hand, and held it softly without looking at her.

For a second or two, Raven didn’t seem to react at all. Jinx could feel a panic bubbling within her. Then, slowly but firmly, Raven’s hand closed around hers.

Jinx controlled her breathing, then stopped breathing altogether as Raven leaned closer into her, standing shoulder to shoulder.

“...There’s our float,” Raven whispered in a way that Jinx heard perfectly clearly, as if calibrated for her slightly enhanced hearing. She remembered how to breathe and looked, then felt the grin slowly overtaking her face.

It was named ‘MASKS’ in large glittery letters. On it were cosplayers in various hero and villain costumes. A Harley Quinn, a Poison Ivy and a Catwoman held hands at the front. Wonder Woman was represented in resplendent faux-Amazon gear. And, just as she had hoped, there was a Robin right at the top, along with a surprise addition.

“Was it Robin’s idea to be holding hands with a Beast Boy?”

“...We didn’t get any input on it, but I’m pretty sure we got our money’s worth. Cyborg is going to joke about this for months.”

Jinx giggled and leaned even closer to Raven, resting her head on her shoulder. “Definitely worth it.”

They stayed there, holding hands, watching the parade until it was done, then walked together slowly down the street as the crowd dispersed.

“Hey,” Jinx said after a while. “Aren’t you worried about… you know… being seen like this with me?”

“...I’m not ashamed of you.”

“It’ll get you into trouble with the Titans, though.”

“Probably.” Raven’s hand tightened around hers. “...It will, whenever they know. It’s inevitable, but sooner or later doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t affect you.”

“Look, I know, I really don’t care what they think and you know I don’t, but…” She tried to find a way to say this without sounding completely desperate. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you. That I do care about.” Because I care about you, she said, in her mind.

“...This was always going to be complicated. That was unavoidable. But… so was this, I think.” She lifted their clasped hands for emphasis.

“You mean… you’ve been thinking about…”

“Us.”

“Together.”

“...Yes.”

Jinx really enjoyed the shiver that travelled up and down her spine at that word. “Yeah. Me too.”

The admission hung in the air between them like an electrified wire.

“...Besides,” Raven continued. “What are the chances people are going to think it’s us? They’ll probably assume we’re cosplayers, like the ones on the float.”

“Oh.” Jinx felt a little silly. “Right. That sounds plausible.”

“...I do admit I worry about you, though. How many people are going to like you associating with me? And how many of them are forgiving types?”

“Oh, there’ll be some knives aimed at my back. As usual. I’ll take life as it comes.”

“...As usual,” Raven said with a smirk. Jinx could practically feel the tension still in her, though.

“We should talk about it, but… let’s not do it today, okay?” Jinx pulled at Raven’s hand. “I like today too much.” I like you too much, she added silently. She was in way too deep at this point and just didn’t care.

Jinx followed a sudden impulse as the crowd thinned more, tugging Raven down towards a side street.

“...Where are we going?”

Jinx put a finger on Raven’s lips, which was enough to stave off any questions. As a bonus, it made Raven’s confused face look very cute.

Jinx turned down a side alley, just a dumpster park for several of the roadside restaurants, then suddenly took Raven by the waist, pushed her into the wall and kissed her.

It was clumsy, and messy, and neither knew what they were doing, but that didn’t stop them for even a second. Raven embraced Jinx back, the pleasant tingle of her touch spreading through Jinx’s entire body, making her shiver. They slowly got into a rhythm, flowing together, moving into and with each other, and Jinx felt like she was losing herself entirely.

Until Raven punched her shoulder.

“Ow?! What the…?”

“That,” Raven said with a glare powerful enough to kill, “was for taking my first kiss in a filthy dumpster-filled alley.”

Jinx glared at her back, but noticed that Raven was still holding her by the waist. “Oh, really? Does that mean you won’t punish me for taking your second kiss here?”

“...Only one way to find out,” Raven warned.

Jinx moved closer, their noses touching, and ever so slowly, they touched their lips together again, exploring gently. Before Jinx could be sure that a second punch wasn't coming, she heard the sound of a camera shutter.

She looked up quickly. Raven didn't seem to have heard it. At the mouth of the alley, taking cover behind a dumpster, was a man with a large-lensed camera. As soon as he noticed Jinx's eyes on him, he retreated away.

"Stop right there!' Jinx shouted, leaving a confused Raven behind.

By the time she'd reached the mouth of the alley, fully ready to hex the guy into oblivion, he had almost made it to the main street. She took off after him as fast as she could, but she knew she would lose him.

Then, suddenly, a foot tripped him up and he fell on his face. The camera lens shattered on the ground. She slowed down as she approached him, cursing and attempting to salvage the pieces as best he could before he noticed Jinx standing above him.

She looked at who had tripped him. It was Em, giving her a surreptitious thumbs up, before disappearing back into the crowd, picking away at her phone.

"...Can someone explain what just happened?" Raven asked.

Jinx snapped her fingers. Whatever little remained of the camera shorted out with a pink flash and fizzled before falling apart.

"Oh come on!" The photographer said. "That was uncalled for."

"More uncalled for than what you were planning to do with those pictures?"

"It's just news," he said.

"Yeah, no, not when you're not wearing a press badge. I know this grift. You take photos of every couple here, find them online and try to find out which ones aren't out yet at work or to family so you can blackmail them. Am I getting warm?"

His expression said she was spot on. "What, are you a cop now? The infamous Jinx doing citizens a favor? You’re a snitch?"

"I don't play as nice as the cops," Jinx said, preparing to hex him again as he cowered in front of her. Then she felt Raven's hand on her arm.

"...No."

Jinx hesitated. "What, you're going to protect this asshole?"

"I protect everyone. Him and you included."

Jinx growled but backed down. "He doesn't deserve it."

"That," Raven said calmly, "is not my decision. It can never be my decision."

Jinx looked away, seething in anger. "Well, we don't have evidence and we don't have cops. What are you gonna do?"

Raven took out her Titan communicator and took a picture of the still cowering man. "Facial analysis tells me his name is Robert Smythe, with a criminal record attached. I am going to write a report and put Robin on the case. If this is what he was doing, he's probably done it before. There will be plenty of evidence."

Jinx frowned. "Whatever. Hey, shithead! Leave the parade and don't come back. We'll know if you do."

He crawled away and stood up, shakily running away as fast as he could, trailing bits of the stricken camera.

Jinx felt Raven's hand on her arm. She pulled away angrily, not looking at her.

"...It's over. We stopped him."

"For someone who doesn't fight for the system, you sure are quick to rely on it," Jinx spat.

"What would you prefer? That I decide who lives and dies by myself? What would that be like whenever we fought? Where would we be now?"

Jinx looked at Raven's face. She was clearly getting heated too.

"I wasn't going to kill him or anything."

"...And was I supposed to know that? You made him think you were going to. You were pretty convincing."

"You know I don't do that. Or I thought you knew." Jinx turned away again angrily. "I even let you do it your way and you're getting mad at me."

"Me? You're the one who won't even let me-" The Titan communicator blared. Jinx looked at it. Raven didn't pick it up.

"It's for you," Jinx said. "Don't let me hold you up."

Raven took it out of her belt and answered it. "Raven here."

As usual, it was Robin. "There's a monster attack on the north side of town. Big rock creatures again. We need you there as fast as you can."

"I'm on my way." She closed it, but made no move to leave.

"You heard him. They need you. Go do what you gotta do, hero."

Raven walked up to Jinx and put her hand on Jinx's arm. This time she let her.

"...And we need to talk. I'll call you later. If you… still want to talk at all."

Jinx turned to look into Raven's eyes. There was hesitation, hurt, resignation, as if Raven fully expected to be rejected. Jinx took Raven's hand and raised it to her face, kissing the back of it softly.

"Yeah. I do." She wasn't any less angry, but the idea of stopping whatever this was wasn't palatable to her.

"...Alright."

Raven turned as if to leave, but Jinx held her hand tightly, suddenly feeling terrible about herself. Raven turned around again, looking at her questioningly, then with surprise as Jinx kissed her lips softly again.

"And I wanna do this again too," Jinx said, before turning away and walking into the crowd.

Jinx didn't look back at Raven, but she felt the magical surge as the sorceress took flight. Then she turned into a side street, screamed and hexed a trash can so hard that it flew into a third floor balcony, spraying its contents everywhere.

"Why the hell do heroes have to be so stupid?" She asked rhetorically before walking towards home.


	4. What You Do

The fire spread rapidly behind Raven as she pursued the thief through the upper floors of the bank. Smoke billowed and gathered on the upper floors, rapidly choking out the oxygen. Bits of burnt wallpaper flew through the air, raining cinders on every surface.

Raven really hoped Jinx had some kind of plan, for both their sakes, or else this might get even uglier. Her answer came quickly: an upper floor balcony, retrofitted with a fire escape. Raven watched as her quarry cast out a pink bolt which deftly opened the door leading out, a blast of hot air nearly bowling them both over as it escaped the building, bringing with it a new wave of hungry flames.

“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!” Pipes in the walls burst, fire extinguishers released their payloads and sprinklers went on overdrive, even though she knew it was useless. Burning cinders cascaded off her cloak as she ran forward towards the escaping thief.

“Jinx! It’s not safe!”

Jinx vaulted easily over the balcony, bag of loot in hand, and grinned back at Raven. “Is anything we ever do safe?”

“You don’t understand! This building is-” just then, the building shook. Some supporting walls crashing down, no doubt; It was one of the older buildings in the city. Raven had no time to idly wonder about that, however, as a surprised Jinx lost her grip on the balcony, her eyes widening as she began to fall backwards.

They were five stories up. Was that the distance between life and death? Raven wasn’t eager to find out. 

Time slowed as she expanded her soul through the entire area, her physical form melting away to ethereality, and she rushed forward, hand outstretched. She was dimly aware that somewhere deep within her mind, several panicked emotions had fuelled this sudden display of power.

She compartmentalized it. As always.

With seemingly a moment to spare, her hand coalesced into physical form to grab jinx’s arm, wrenching her back up to the balcony. The rest of Raven’s body followed suit, their faces mere inches apart as Raven hovered in the air.

Neither of them seemed to notice or care about the second explosion from within the building as Raven grabbed Jinx by the neck and kissed her fiercely, the pink witch still half-dangling off the balcony, loot in hand. Burning banknotes flew into the air and rained down all around them.

As their lips parted, Raven looked into Jinx’s eyes. Whatever Jinx saw in hers made her blink and swallow hard, a clearly visible pair of transparent second eyelids opening and closing beneath the first. It seemed one of Raven’s conjectures had been true after all.

Without saying a word, Raven flew over the balcony’s edge and picked Jinx up in her arms, slowly flying down towards the alley below as the thief put one arm around her neck. She didn’t look up as the balcony above them cracked and began to fall; she didn’t look as she raised a black shield around them both, protecting them from falling masonry as Jinx yelped and hugged herself closer into Raven’s embrace. Her eyes were locked on Jinx all the way down to the street below.

As soon as Raven's feet touched the ground, Jinx let go of her bag and snaked both arms around Raven's neck.

"So that's what it's like to be rescued," Jinx said. The cocktail of happy emotions emanating from her was answered from deep within Raven, and she felt her cheeks heat up just in time for Jinx to plant a kiss on one.

"Yo, did I miss something big?" Said Cyborg.

Raven practically felt her heartbeat stop. Cyborg was indeed there, and behind him were Robin and Starfire, the surprise radiating from them so solid that it felt like a slap in the face.

Jinx smiled happily. "Oh, nothing big. Raven here just caught me from falling off the building. My hero~"

Raven looked at her, dumbfounded.

"Some things don't change," Cyborg said, rolling his eye. "Good work, Raven. Take her over to the prison wagon, we have fire relief to do."

Raven was caught completely off guard by this reaction, which was apparently shared by the other Titans. Their emotions indicated that they'd taken Jinx's answer to be sarcastic, aside from an oddly excited spike from Starfire. The other Titans turned away to assist in the fire fighting, leaving Raven to deal with Jinx.

"...Seriously, Jinx? This is how you're playing this?" She calibrated her whisper in a way she knew only Jinx would hear.

"It's working, isn't it?" Jinx winked at her.

"You... do realize this means I have to take you in."

Jinx looked her in the eye and shrugged as best she could. "You know what? You earned this one. We both knew this might happen."

Did we? Raven asked herself silently. She had hypothesized about this event; what if Jinx used their mutual feelings to escape, abusing her trust? What if she asked to be let go? How would she react if Raven caught her, and could she even catch her at all? Nothing had prepared her for this scenario, and she groaned. Jinx was nothing if not creatively aggravating. 

"Fine. At least let me put you down."

"I'm afraid I hurt my leg falling from that balcony."

"...No you didn't." She did sense Jinx was in pain, but it was in her shoulder from being caught earlier.

"You can't risk it. Better check my leg later to make sure."

Raven sighed with exasperation and began walking, lifting the discarded bag of loot with her power. "You're insufferable. Why do I date you?"

"Because I'm the best." Jinx nuzzled her neck happily with an exaggerated glee, drawing some attention from onlookers. "Next to my personal hero, of course~"

Raven was sure that her embarrassment only added to the effect Jinx was shooting for and hurried toward the open prison transport. Inside was a comatose Mammoth, a thoroughly dazed Gizmo covered in soot, and Beast Boy glumly keeping watch.

Raven set Jinx down and found a pair of meta-dampening cuffs, opening them. She hoped her eyes could convey her apology to Jinx, but the witch put her hands in them without complaint. Raven knew they weren't pleasant, but Jinx handled them like a pro.

Which, she supposed, she was.

"...Now, about your injury."

"What, gonna undress me in front of all the boys?"

Raven sensed Beast Boy's embarrassment behind her. "Not quite."

She placed a hand over Jinx's shoulder and began to concentrate, muttering an incantation under her breath. A white light enveloped her hand and seeped gently into Jinx, who sighed with relief, her surprise palpable.

"Didn't know you could heal, Raven."

"It... isn't easy. You should be fine, but don't strain it."

Jinx nodded, then suddenly raised her cuffed hands and hooked them around Raven's head, drawing her in for a tight hug.

"...By Azar will you please stop."

"I don't know any Azar." Jinx kissed Raven's cheek with an exaggerated mwah sound again. Beast Boy's emoted embarrassment doubled in intensity. "One extra kiss for my hero~"

Raven didn't know what was worse; that Jinx kept up the act for Beast Boy's sake, or that she genuinely just was that grateful towards Raven. She shook Jinx off as gently as she could. "...They need my help with the fire you started."

"You started it, my luck just didn't help."

She decided not to push it today. "Will you be alright by yourself, Beast Boy?"

"Sure," the green boy said, strangely subdued. Raven nodded, gave Jinx one last look as a goodbye, and joined the others. She vaguely realized that something had felt off in the transport, but didn't give herself time to dwell on it. There was a fire to stop.

An hour later, the Titans returned to the car to find a thoroughly unconscious and hogtied Beast Boy, still comatose HIVE guys, a pair of empty cuffs, a missing bag of loot and no Jinx.

Raven didn't know what else she had been expecting.

It was two days later that Raven slipped into a dimly lit cafe and immediately found a mostly hidden corner table. Jinx's civilian garb was much more restrained now, complete with a purple hoodie Raven thought would look good on her.

"And here I didn't go with a hoodie because you gave me crap last time," Raven said as she moved to sit down opposite her. She hesitated as she sensed Jinx's disappointment, then changed her mind and sat next to her instead. Jinx’s happy sensation was worth it.

Jinx looked her up and down. "You're looking… real good, actually. Never expected to see a beanie on you."

"Em gave me the idea." She yawned. "You've been exonerated from arson, by the way."

"I knew that was you guys!"

"...No. It was another one of those elemental creatures. It was drawn to the commotion." She yawned again. "They just keep coming."

"You okay, babe? I've never seen you yawn before."

"I've been… researching. These attacks have to stop. I still haven't pinned down who's behind it or why."

"Well, get some rest! When you do know who is behind it you'll want to be ready, right?" Jinx's emoted concern wrapped around Raven's mind like a comforting blanket.

"...That's what Robin told me. He said I needed a break. Usually it's me telling him that."

Raven felt Jinx's arm around her as she was drawn into her embrace, leaning her head on Jinx's shoulder. She accepted it without complaint.

"So uh," Jinx said hesitantly. "Did Beast Boy talk with you yet?"

Raven made a tired noise she hoped would be taken as no. "About what?"

"He told me he knows about… us. That night in the paddy wagon."

Raven sat more straight. "...Wait. How. What."

"He saw us from the air during the parade. He was watching that float with him on it because he thought it was funny and spotted us. And he saw pretty much everything."

"He hasn't said anything to me. Or anyone, as far as I am aware." She thought back to that night and realized that Beast Boy hadn't registered any surprise at Jinx's behaviour.

"I mean… I was half expecting you to call me because the Titans had kicked you out or something and it turns out he's shut his trap." 

Raven took Jinx's hand, sensing the acrid tang of her guilt. "When it all comes out, it won't be that bad."

"If you say so."

"I know so. I trust them. And, thanks to you, now they won't think it interferes with work."

Jinx snorted, smiling. "That's what Beast Boy said. He was weirded out by it."

"...I was surprised too."

"Well, we both know how it works, right? It helps us both to keep doing it this way, weird as that seems."

"We already had friction about that…" Not that Raven was eager to relive that horrible moment from the parade.

Jinx's annoyance spiked. "Yeah, well, that wasn't just the two of us. When it's just us, it's smooth."

Raven smiled and dropped the topic. Jinx wasn't forgiving her handling of it, but wasn't going to dwell on it. For now, it would do. "I just didn't think it would be so simple for me after that incident. I wasn't sure if you'd hate me for… capturing you."

"Well, now you know I won't, any more than you hate me for getting away. You already captured my heart."

"...Dork."

"You spent too long around Em." Jinx waved down a waitress and, after indication from Raven, ordered for both of them. Raven remembered that they'd made a bet about that and sighed. Jinx had stolen in order to eat, she reminded herself, but that didn't make her feel less guilty about partaking herself when she didn't need to.

"I suppose I will confront him about it soon," Raven said out loud. "Who knows what his brain cell is thinking."

"I know I can sleep easier knowing I didn't ruin your life. Good kid. Oh, did you bring the thing?"

Raven's tired mind focused until she remembered. "...The book. Of course."

She reached into a pocket, thankfully larger on the inside than the outside - she had no idea how most women managed - and pulled out two books. One was a small leather-bound tome, decorated with silver, with no title. The other was an ordinary notebook, written in Raven's handwriting, titled 'language notes.'

"This is the healing spell?" Jinx asked, running a finger down the book's spine curiously.

"...And the notebook has a translation spell and some other notes on Azar. The language, that is. That book was penned by hand by Azar herself."

"I still have no idea who that is." Jinx kissed Raven's cheek. "Thanks for indulging me."

"It will be difficult," Raven warned. "Just like it was hard for me. Our magic isn't very compatible with the energies and symbols of healing."

"If you can, I can." Jinx's competitive streak was friendly but determined, if Raven was feeling her correctly. "Even if my magic is worse for it."

"...It's not."

"Bad luck is better for causing injuries. At least your darkness power is value neutral like that."

Raven sighed. Was this truly the best time? Should she hide it longer? Even if she could, her conscience didn't allow it. "...The aspect of my magic isn't just darkness."

"Really? Could have fooled me."

"Fooled everyone. Forever, if I can."

Jinx's curiosity was lined with sudden concern for her. "Should I be worried about the way you said that?"

Raven frowned as their order was delivered and sipped her tea before answering. How could she best phrase this?

"What if I told you… That my power was evil." Yeah, that was smooth. Not.

"Hey come on, that's harsh. Evil is what you do, not who you are. You of all people should know that."

"What if who I am is evil, Jinx?"

"Babe." Jinx looked her in the eye. "If my power isn't, yours isn't either. Mine is bad, I can't hope for better than what I've got, but I make the best of it and so do you."

"...Yours is not evil." She sighed. She had to make a plunge. "What if I told you that ruination, chaos, damnation, deceit and treachery were aspects of my magic?"

"Sounds metal."

Raven pinched the bridge of her nose. "Be serious. Please."

"It can't be that bad, right?" Jinx seemed to hesitate as she looked at Raven's expression. "Why are you looking at me like I'm about to break up with you?"

"...Because after learning this, you might."

Jinx stroked Raven's chin and looked her in the eyes. The slit pupils made Raven's heart melt a little. She choked the feeling down before it could overwhelm her, but still thought she had heard glass break in the distance. 

"You aren't getting rid of me that easy," Jinx said.

"...We'll see."

"No, I know. Don't be like this, Raven. Please."

Raven could sense Jinx's hurt and looked down. "I'm sorry. I'll just show you."

She concentrated for a moment, then drew a circle into the surface of the table. Visible only to her and Jinx, a dome of silence sprung into being around their table. Jinx looked at it curiously, clearly intending to learn as much as she could.

"This spell also includes a perception filter, but… if I start acting like at the pizza parlour, tell me. My magic tends to not respect my circles."

Jinx looked at her supportively and nodded.

Raven took a deep breath, and began her mantra. She was about to do the one thing her training had been designed to prevent; to be herself.

The circle drawn into the table expanded as she changed, its surface becoming indistinct. At first it showed nothing but darkness. Then pinpricks of red light, in groupings of four, became visible.

She concentrated again, and the darkness within the circle became backlit by a red glow. The pinpricks were eyes, their owners strangely distorted ravens, their perches dead trees, the only sound accompanying them distant, pained screams. The screams of the damned.

"What… The hell, Raven?"

"...Exactly. You are seeing a vision of my power."

The circle was suddenly wrenched to the side, as if the other end were a camera, and centered on a person dressed in a crimson cloak, her eyes glowing a sinister red.

"Raven? Is that you? Do you have a twin?" Jinx asked.

Raven tried to wrest back control, gritting her teeth. "Don't make this more difficult than it is," she commanded the apparition in the circle.

"Why should I?" Answered the other Raven, her voice reverberating oddly. She smiled, and her mouth was full of fangs. She looked directly at Jinx. "Didn't you want our girl to know who we really are? What lies beneath that veneer you laughably call skin?"

"Our girl…?" Jinx asked softly.

"Let go. This is enough."

"Oh, I don't think it is." She wrenched at the circle again, now displaying a giant ruined Titans Tower. "Remember this? Don't you think she ought to know?" 

"Stop it," Raven growled. Jinx seemed startled. Raven realized too late that her voice had begun changing with the strain.

"How about showing her what you did… to her." The red-cloaked Raven wrenched at the view again, and it flew across what was recognizably Jump City, but in a flaming, distorted ruin. The view dove into the earth, past pipes and sewers and stranger things, into a new place.

"That's the old HAYEP school," Raven heard Jinx whisper. "The HIVE base…" then Jinx gasped.

Before Raven could answer, the view had moved across stone statues of the HIVE students. Some seemed puzzled. Others were horrified. And then it came to rest on what was unmistakably Jinx.

She was on the floor, chalk in hand, desperately trying to scribble a circle of protection into the floor, one hand gripping the side of her head. Her cheeks were stained with dry salt, as if she had been crying the moment she turned to stone, her face conveying an expression of horror.

"That's ENOUGH!" Raven's outburst seemed to be enough to wrench back control, and the view zoomed quickly back over the city, out into the bay, revealing a blood-red sky.

A mocking cackle emerged from the circle. "This is who Raven is, Jinx. Enjoy."

Then it abruptly vanished, the circle returning to its normal size. Raven hid her face in her hands, her breath shaky.

"Raven?" Jinx's voice echoed with the concern she was feeling. "Are- are you okay?"

"...This was a bad idea. I should never have tried. I'm sorry."

"Could you look at me for a second? Please?"

With considerable effort, she straightened herself up and looked at Jinx. "That was too much. It was… that's my power, Jinx. I am always fighting it, at every moment."

Jinx seemed dumbstruck, looking her in the eyes. One by one. Four times.

Raven realized what was happening. She looked at her hands and saw the reflected red glow from her face. She immediately tried to cover her face up again, but Jinx grabbed her wrists, stopping her.

"Raven. Please. Show me. Look at me."

Raven couldn't control her breathing, but looked at Jinx again. Jinx seemed to be taking in every detail, looking into all four eyes in turn. Her eyes began to feel hot, and she closed them, tears running down her cheeks and forehead.

She sensed Jinx moving closer, then held her breath as Jinx began kissing her eyes. She kissed the tears away, then the eyelids, of all four in turn.

"It's okay, Raven. It's going to be okay. Breathe, babe."

Raven breathed, then opened two eyes. The other two were gone again. Jinx's emotions radiated… caring, uncertainty, fear, curiosity… and loathing.

Raven hiccupped. "I guess we're breaking up, then."

"No. Not even close."

Raven looked into Jinx's eyes. "But… you saw…" 

"I don't understand any of what I saw. But I understand what you were trying to say earlier. About evil." The loathing sensation crawled more strongly, but Raven realized it wasn't directed at her.

Jinx was loathing herself.

"Jinx, are you… alright?"

Jinx smiled, then laughed. "Why are you asking me that? You're the one in distress. Stop being so selfless all the time! Why are heroes so dumb?"

Raven hugged Jinx closer to herself. "Then be selfish like the villain you are and tell me what's wrong."

She felt Jinx take in a shuddering sigh. "I'm bad luck. Good was never an option for me. Or so I thought."

Raven stroked her hair softly.

"I dunno, Raven. I feel like such an idiot now. Poor Jinx, her bad powers won't give her a choice, she has to be a bad girl and just be the best at it she can be, woe is me. And then you show me that you might as well have been born on a metal cover and you're…"

"...I'm a Titan," Raven finished. "In spite of myself."

"And what does that make me? Pathetic? An idiot? A poser?"

"It makes you… someone who didn't have what I had."

Jinx's breath evened out. "You said… you had a good life."

Raven pulled back, looking Jinx in the eyes. "Let me show you that, too."

She waved her hand over the tome on the table. It opened without her touching it. Then she cast a translation spell on it. "Read the introduction, Jinx. Out loud."

Jinx frowned and drew the book closer.

> To Raven, my student.
> 
> You did not choose your beginning, nor do you see a way to escape your fate. Neither must define your life in this world if you do not wish it. Let the spell within this book be a reminder that your beliefs and actions are who you truly are.
> 
> Your teacher,
> 
> Azar

"Azar is… was, more than my teacher," Raven said as Jinx finished. "She … was, the leader and founder of my home, Azarath. It's a place for scholars and mystics to practice their arts and philosophies in peace. They knew who I was and what I was capable of, and still took me in, gave me a place among them, and taught me control. Taught me that I could be something other than… that. Azar penned this book by hand and gave it to me on my twelfth birthday, a traditional Azarath rite of passage."

She took Jinx's hand and held it tightly.

"Jinx, that book represents everything to me. Mastering that spell proved to me that I was more than a… monster. It's one of the few things I brought with me from Azarath, and is still one of my most prized possessions. The lesson it taught me is something I carry every day. And now, I'm entrusting it to you."

"What? Raven, I had no idea how important this is to you. I can't take this-"

"Take it," Raven insisted. "Maybe it will help you like it helped me. I hope it will. I already wanted to give it to you, and it's even more important now. I believe in you, Jinx.”

“I don’t.”

“Then believe in me until you do.”

Jinx looked her in the eyes, then softly drew her in for a long, sweet kiss. “I don’t understand even half of what just happened, but I don’t have to. And you don’t have to explain all of it today. I just had no idea you were such a four-eyes.”

“...Oh come on, Jinx. You really went there?”

“Really,” Jinx said, grinning. “You’re stuck with me too.”

Raven was about to retort, but a yawn overtook her. “Ugh, I really should get some rest.”

“I have an idea for that, actually, now that the boys are in the clink…”

Raven’s unusually pleasant dream was disturbed by a familiar tinny warbling sound dancing at the edge of her consciousness. It was loud and insistent, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. She entered a lucid state, in control of her dream, but not yet fully awake, looking for the source of the intrusion.

The sound stopped, replaced by a familiar voice. “Hey, pick up, Raven! Come on! You’re making me worried!”

Beast Boy. Her communicator had entered voicemail mode. Before she could stir to find it, though, an arm unhooked itself from around her waist where she lay and answered it for her.

“Heya, BB,” Jinx said, the words drifting into Raven’s half-sleeping mind. “Our girl’s a little indisposed, is that okay?”

“Gah!” There were some odd noises, then Beast Boy began whispering. “Dude! What the hell, Jinx? What if someone else had heard you?”

“Then we’d have had a good old time explaining ourselves. Raven was dead on her feet so I brought her home to let her nap. Look.” There was a shuffling noise. “See? Not even the communicator woke her up.”

“What is she wearing?”

“My clothes. She didn’t exactly bring sleepwear with her. Is it urgent? I can wake her up if-”

“Ughhh, no, it’s fine. Let her sleep, she barely has for like, a week. Wait. Did you two…"

“What, you want all the juicy details?”

“I - you know what, no thanks. This is so weird.”

“Thanks for not telling the others yet. I thought you would talk to Raven about it, though?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s in the middle of like fifty magical books trying to figure out a mystery and I’m supposed to just casually walk up and ask hey girl, I hear you got a girlfriend now? Who is also a bank robber who kicked us out of our house once? That’s a bit awkward you know?”

“Well… look, yes, it's a little complicated. We’re not officially girlfriends or anything. We didn’t really choose this.”

Beast Boy groaned. “Robin’s gonna kill all of us, and save me for last. Anyway, I guess she’s not coming home for dinner. I’ll tell everyone she’s having a nap.”

“Thanks, BB.”

“Oh, I guess… you know magic and stuff, right? Maybe you can help her.”

“Why would I help?”

“I dunno, so she doesn’t push herself without sleep for days at a time on her own? You’re the one dating her.”

“And you know how she is about asking, too.”

“So don’t wait for her to ask! She’ll read herself into a grave before asking and we both know it. Ugh, whatever. Someone's coming. I’m out.”

“Seeya.”

The call ended. Raven heard Jinx place the communicator back on the nightstand and felt her put her arm back around her. She dimly remembered Jinx had insisted on being ‘big spoon’, whatever that meant.

“...Maybe the twerp has a point,” Jinx muttered into Raven’s hair. Raven almost wanted to wake up completely to wipe away the traces of guilt and shame Jinx was emoting, but they disappeared quickly on their own as she relaxed with Raven in her arms.

Raven listened for Jinx’s breath growing short and even, and allowed her consciousness to sink back fully into a dreamstate. It was a problem for later. All of them were problems for later.


	5. Heroes Are Dumb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for recreational drug use.

Jinx left the bar, her newest purchase secure in a hidden pocket. She didn’t feel like going back to the base yet, despite the risk; there was no one at home, and it was a nice sunny morning in Jump City. And if someone recognized her or got the cops on her tail, well, she could use the exercise.

She briefly considered whether she should call Raven. Jinx had thought a lot about what she should and could do to help Raven, and had made up her mind, so maybe it was best to just get the girl out of the Tower and get it over with. Even if the idea of what she was about to do left a foul taste in her mouth.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a scream and what sounded like an explosion. People brushed past her, escaping whatever danger was waiting up the street.

Jinx frowned and turned to move with the crowd until she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Kate!"

Jinx's head snapped back. Was that Em?

Jinx walked into the street, now jammed with escaping people on foot, and jumped from car to car towards the danger. The situation became clear pretty quickly.

She would barely have recognized it as a monster except for the iron bands around its near-invisible limbs and neck, at twice her own height. It was made of swirling air, lifting cars with blasts of wind. She looked around and spotted what she was after; Em's jacket with Em in it, off in a corner, covering behind a car. And next to her, a clearly injured and dazed Kate.

Jinx whipped out her HIVE communicator and speed dialed Raven. The tones sounded several times, and Jinx felt her heart pounding harder every second.

"Come on, Raven, pick up."

Suddenly, a beep sounded, followed by Raven's voice, sounding incredibly bored. "If you are hearing this message, the Titans are currently answering a crisis alert. Please-"

Jinx ended the call, goosebumps running up her arms. There were other monsters. The Titans were busy. Raven wasn't coming.

There was no one there to save Kate and Em. No one but her.

 _'If not me, who will?'_ A memory spoke in her mind.

The monster blew away the car hiding Kate and Em and bellowed. Em covered Kate's body with hers as it raised its limb to attack.

And Jinx's hex hit the iron band around the monster's neck, momentarily making it lose cohesion, forcing it to pay attention to the witch.

"You stay the hell away from those girls," she said with confidence she definitely wasn't feeling.

Heroes really were incredibly dumb.

The monster blasted a car at her and she twirled over it, landing back on the street. She fired more magic at it, but to her dismay they passed clean through it unless she hit the iron bands.

She dodged and weaved several more attacks, her mind racing. Fire she could have extinguished. Earth she could trap and break. Water she might be able to disperse or boil away. But how in the world was she going to defeat air?

"Should have asked Raven about that disintegration spell," she muttered, keeping the monster busy. Em was dragging Kate to relative safety in the doorway to a building, but it was slow going. The trail of red they were leaving behind wasn't helping Jinx's concentration.

She twirled and flipped easily out of the way of the monster’s attacks, her mind racing for options. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted an electronics store with a big sign advertising electric fans, 50% off, perfect for a hot day like this.

Surely the idea Jinx had wasn’t going to work. She went for it anyway.

“Hey, backdraft! Follow me if you can!” she taunted. Regardless of whether the thing could actually understand her it did follow, sending blasts of air every which way. Jinx ran into the store as quickly as she could, making her way to the promised display of electric fans of various shapes and sizes.

“All right, you butt trumpet, just line yourself up nice and easy,” she muttered, watching the monster make its destructive way into and through the store. As it approached the electric fans, she twirled where she stood and shot her magic all around her.

As one, the fans went berserk. Some sped up. One took flight. A few had been turned off and roared to life. A couple of them were broken out of their packaging. The monster maintained its form easily for a few moments until a fan got caught on one of the iron bands. It was one of the weirdest things she’d ever seen: it was almost like the fan was siphoning off the monster’s arm until the iron fell to the ground, inert. Almost immediately, the monster reduced in size, which only made it more vulnerable to the appliance attack.

After no more than a minute, the fans burned themselves out, scattered among the remnants of the elemental’s iron shackles. Jinx gently nudged one with her foot, satisfied.

“I wasn’t going to be defeated by a glorified fart,” she said smugly to herself, exiting the store again. She made her way towards the girls, but stopped in her tracks when a body-shaking roar almost made her fall over. She looked behind her, and her face fell.

Jinx was forced to revise her opinion on how she'd defeat a fire elemental. This one was more than twice as large as the air monster had been, melting the asphalt under it as it strode towards her. There was no easy source of water that would extinguish this thing. And she was still winded from the last one, too.

"Alright," she said, spitting. "Come at me, then."

The giant monster stopped, looked at her, and then bellowed at her, unleashing a massive gout of fire. Jinx flipped backwards to dodge it, then regretted it as the blast of hot air bowled her over. She got up quickly, just in time to see another blast coming at her. She crossed her arms in panic, covering her face.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

A dark tendril of energy enveloped her waist and pulled her into the air, straight into the waiting embrace of Raven.

Jinx wasted no time in kissing her cheek. "About time you showed up," she said, still shaking from the near miss.

"...Sorry for being late," Raven said, flying out of the way of a swiping fist of flame. "Are you alright?"

Jinx indicated the street below. "I'm fine, but Kate and Em are stuck down there. We have to get them to safety!"

Raven looked her briefly in the eye. "Doing some heroics, are you?"

"I-" Jinx frowned. "Let's deal with that after we've saved the day, alright?"

Raven smiled her tiny smile and landed them on the ground. "Then let's."

They launched an attack together, but we're quickly repulsed by the intense heat. Jinx grabbed its attention, distracting it.

"Do that thing you did to the stone monster, Raven!"

Raven summoned her power and blasted it at the unsuspecting creature, centre mass. It bulged and distorted strangely, then suddenly belched the dark energy out of its body, dispersing it.

"...Well that's not good," Raven said, eyes wide.

As if in response, it turned to look at Raven. Unfortunately for all of them, it instead spotted Kate and Em cowering in a doorway.

Jinx and Raven moved as one towards the girls, Raven extending her power to as many nearby empty cars as she could. Just as the monster breathed out its fire, Raven pulled the cars towards her, forming a makeshift shield.

"Can you two get out of here?" Jinx asked Em.

Em cradled a terrified, pain-stricken Kate close and shook her head. "I can't lift her properly. She's too hurt." Tears ran down her face, despite her even tone. Jinx took one look and decided Em was right; Kate would only be worse off if she were moved.

Jinx put a hand on Em's shoulder. "Just hold her as tight as you can, okay?"

Em nodded. "I know you can beat it."

"Kick its ass," Kate said in a daze.

Raven held the makeshift wall of cars steady as it was pummelled over and over by the monster's gouts of flame. With each blow, their cover grew noticeably thinner.

"...Any ideas, Jinx? You're the tactician."

Jinx stood up. "Remember the old attack pattern alpha we used to use on you guys?"

"I do. Whose role am I playing?"

"You be Gizmo."

Raven made a face. "Ugh. Fine. Say the word."

Jinx had been unconsciously timing the seconds between attacks and narrowed her eyes. Just as the shield of cars seemed spent, she sprang into action. "Now!"

On cue, Raven dispersed the debris, then threw it piecemeal at the iron-bound elemental in a distracting, chaotic pattern. Jinx grinned. It was a near perfect imitation of Gizmo's missile massacre maneuver. The creature's next attack was rudely interrupted, forcing its attention on the stinging assault.

Jinx slipped easily by it and threw several hexes. One hit a manhole cover, another a fire hydrant, yet another the remnants of an ice cream cart. As one, they spewed liquid into the air. Raven's assault forced it to back up just enough to be hit squarely by it. The scream it emitted shook the nearby buildings.

Jinx seized her chance and brought down her mightiest earth-shatter hex, breaking open a fissure between its feet.

"Now be Mammoth, Raven!"

Raven picked up another car with her power. She concentrated for a moment, then swung her arms down hard. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

The car impacted on the fissure with such power that Jinx felt the shockwave where she was standing. The fissure ruptured, breaking open the main sewer line below them, swallowing the fiery monster into it. It bellowed as blasts of steam rose into the air, until it finally extinguished itself, leaving only empty iron bands scattered about.

In the relative calm that followed, Raven and Jinx caught each other's eye. They held their gazes together for a moment.

Then Kate's moans of pain cut through the sudden quiet, snapping them both back to attention. Raven reached her side first, examining her injuries, while Jinx walked up to Em.

"Kate is gonna be okay," Jinx said.

Em looked her in the eyes, then suddenly grabbed her by the midsection in a fierce hug.

"Thank you," she said, voice trembling.

Jinx patted her back awkwardly as she watched Raven do her work. The now familiar healing light spread across Kate's body, making her gasp. Em looked at the light, enraptured. Jinx walked over to Kate, a shaking Em in tow, and raised her hand toward Raven's. "I didn't master it yet, but…"

Raven nodded, and Jinx took the invitation. She placed her hand on Raven's and concentrated, muttering the incantation as best she could, listening to Raven's voice to correct her pronunciation. She felt a surge as their spells joined together, the light doubling in intensity, and allowed Raven to guide their movements over Kate's injuries.

Em took Jinx's other hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed it back. After just a minute, Raven finally relented, dispersing the spell. Kate's injuries seemed to be completely gone. The girl tested her limbs and smiled as Em practically bowled her over with another hug.

"You two are so cool," Kate said quietly.

Jinx wanted to make a snarky comment, but she felt oddly drained, like after a full day of casting hexes in a training room. Raven also looked tired, but satisfied.

Then a police siren sounded in the distance, snapping Jinx to attention. She looked apologetically at the others and shrugged. "Gotta go, I guess."

Raven took and held her hand as she was about to turn away. "...The park, in two hours?" She asked. "I need to give a report."

Jinx looked at her and smiled. "See you there."

Raven nodded and Jinx ran off down the street in what she hoped was a good direction, waving back at the grateful girls. Despite her fatigue and aches and the stupid risk she'd just taken, she felt better than she had in a while, and she couldn't articulate why.

Civvie clothes hadn't been an option. Even among the trees, Jinx felt exposed waiting for the two-hour mark. She was still a little adrenaline giddy and drained.

She couldn't quite process all the wild stray thoughts running through her head after that fight. Would she have saved just anyone? She only tried because it was someone she knew. But wasn't every person someone's Kate or Em? Raven's arguments from the diner about kindness snuck their way in as well. It was enough to give her a headache.

Raven was fortunately punctual. Jinx spotted her walking down one of the paths and waved as discreetly as she could to catch her attention. As Raven walked closer, Jinx noticed that she was wearing a familiar purple hoodie.

"So that's where my hoodie went," Jinx said, amused.

"...It smells like you," Raven said by way of explanation. "I like it."

Jinx felt her face heat up. "Next thing I know you'll be walking a mile in my shoes."

"I'm just glad you are okay," Raven said. Jinx responded by giving her a brief hug.

"Me too. I still remember how hurt you were that first time we fought together."

"...It was fine."

Jinx lightly swatted her arm. "None of this carrying the world on your shoulders stuff today. Alright?"

Raven looked as if she was about to protest, but relented. "...You're right. Again. I… have been sleeping better, too, like you asked me to."

"Good. Now what do you say about going somewhere more private so I can really reward you?"

Raven smiled and took her hand, but instead of leading Jinx out of the park, she walked further into it. Jinx was about to ask, but Raven turned as if she sensed her curiosity and put a finger on her lips.

Raven really was quite good at guessing how she felt. Uncannily so.

Raven led her down an overgrown path, dodging low-hanging branches as they went, as if it were a forgotten corner of the park or the path to some strange fairy realm. The path opened up into a small clearing with grass nearly as tall as they were.

They walked into the middle of the clearing and stopped at what looked like a stone slab of some kind. Jinx realized it was a table just as Raven flew up onto it before turning around to help Jinx up.

"...I saw this spot from the air one day while on patrol," Raven said before Jinx could ask. She sat down, patting a spot next to her.

Jinx took the invitation and snuggled into Raven's arms. "Alright, maybe Kate was right. This is cool. You're cool."

"Of course I am."

Jinx giggled - a full on happy giggle she'd never expected to hear coming from her. "That's my line!"

Raven kissed her forehead. "I learned from the worst."

Jinx sighed happily, relaxing in Raven's arms. She practically felt the tension of the day drain away. Even so, the task she had set for herself still weighed on her. She didn't want to interrupt the moment with work talk.

"...Something on your mind, Jinx?"

"How do you always seem to know," Jinx asked rhetorically.

"I… sense it. Emphatically."

Jinx blinked, then frowned slightly. "As in… telepathy?"

"Not quite. You know how… some magical creatures, can sense fear and stress?"

Jinx nodded. "Wraiths, nighthaunts, hellhounds…"

"...And me. But more so."

"Fair enough." Jinx snuggled closer. "Sorry, I just… I don't like telepaths."

"You do like one," Raven said hesitantly. "I am… technically… capable of it. I just don't."

Jinx felt a dark memory fighting its way into her mind and clamped down on it. "How do you mean?"

"The last time I used it, I was nine. I cheated on a test. Since then, I've been taught to control it."

Jinx found the mental image of a tiny Raven cheating on a test adorable despite herself. "But you don't use it?"

"No. I find it… morally questionable, in many ways. I have seen such abilities misused too many times."

Jinx swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. "Well… thank you. For telling me, and for not using it. I just… I'll tell you sometime why it's an issue for me, okay?"

"Okay." Raven leaned down and kissed Jinx's forehead. "Thank you for accepting that I'm like a hellhound."

"You're like a hellhound but cooler. Of course I like that." Even if she privately wished she'd known earlier, she did find the idea easy to accept. "As for the other thing… I did some digging. But you have to promise me something."

"Alright."

"What I'm about to say didn't come from me. Say it was an anonymous tip or something. We thieves and stuff-doers don't snitch on each other or pry, ever, and I'm breaking that rule just this once."

"...You're never letting that stuff-doing comment go, are you?"

"Nope. But I am serious about this. And just like how I don't ask you to go easy on me, I'm gonna ask you to never ask me to do this sort of thing. I want a promise."

Raven nodded. "...I promise I will never ask you to snitch." Her words carried a strange weight.

"Okay. Good." Jinx took a deep breath. "Grapevine says there was a black market auction of unusual items a few months ago. One of them was a magic staff with unknown powers. And it was sold to someone who lives here in Jump City. Someone who does magic. I don't know specifically who, but there's not a lot of us."

Raven considered this. "Aside from me and you, there's Mother Mae-Eye and Mumbo that I can think of. They both seem unlikely."

"I don't know of anyone new, and yes, I asked. I feel a little dirty about it. I did get a description of the staff, though."

She reached into a pocket for a slip of paper, and her breath caught as a pair of white rolled-up paper cigarettes she'd purchased that morning accidentally rolled out of her pocket. No one would have mistaken them for tobacco.

Raven looked at them, then looked at her with a questioning eyebrow.

"Medicinal," she mumbled, hastily stowing them away and handing her a slip of paper. "Here's the description I got."

"...Thank you," Raven said. "This will narrow my search down a lot and maybe end this problem much faster."

"That's the idea," Jinx said, looking guiltily away. "I kind of got the idea from Beast Boy."

Raven smirked. "He still doesn't know that I know, and I haven't confronted him. I've been letting him stew. Maybe I should give him a break."

Jinx laughed. "Wow, that's cruel. What will you tell him?"

"Probably that if he feels guilty about it, he should tell the others. It will come out eventually anyway."

"You don't seem to be in a hurry, though."

"...I just want this crisis to be over first. Everything else can wait until I figure it out."

Jinx swatted her arm again. "What did I say earlier?"

"...Ugh, fine." Raven took her hand. "I guess that's most of the work talk done. Now… what's this about your medicine?"

Jinx glanced away. "I know what it sounds like but it's true. I've… been on prescription stuff before for things, but this works better than all of it does. The docs never really pinned down a diagnosis in the first place. And it's easier for me to get, ironically."

Jinx felt Raven rubbing her hand softly. "It's not like I'll take you in for possession, or ask where you got it. It's okay. I was just surprised."

"Serious meta crims don't do this stuff. I have an image to maintain you know."

Raven smiled the sly little smile Jinx loved so much. "...So you actually are into stuff-doing, is what you're saying."

Jinx couldn't maintain her composure, chuckling as she hugged Raven. "Oh my Gods, Raven, I can't believe you."

"...If you can tolerate my meditation for my mental well-being, I can accept this."

"Ah, but did you ever try my way?" Jinx wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Well, no, the risk of losing control is-"

Jinx shushed her and retrieved one joint from her pocket. "No time like the present to find out, right?"

"Do you seriously think you can convince me to try, Jinx?"

Jinx grinned.

Raven handed Jinx the lit joint back, exhaling. "...I really thought this would make me lose control. Seems kind of silly now."

"What, did Robin make you watch Reefer Madness?"

"Yes. Yes he did."

Jinx looked into Raven's eyes, and Raven stared back, completely deadpan. Then they both collapsed into giggles.

"That is like the most Robin thing I've ever heard!" Jinx dried a tear from her eye.

"He really is a good guy below all that. Seriously. I mean it. Stop giggling," Raven said, unable to control her own giggles.

Jinx answered by placing the joint in her mouth, inhaling a good amount, and then drawing Raven in for a kiss. Raven let herself be kissed, then drew away, exhaling the smoke.

Raven looked dazed. "...That was… really hot."

"Just like you," Jinx said, pinching the end of the joint and putting it in a pocket. Then she patted it, surprised. "Hello, what's this?"

Raven looked curiously at what Jinx retrieved from her pocket. "Are those earrings?"

Jinx smiled. "Oh! I remember these studs! These caught my eye that night we rescued Kate for the first time. If they hadn't, I'd have been smooshed by that stone monster in that store."

"I like you unsmooshed," Raven said gravely. "And I like those too. Pink and black, like you and me."

"Hey, yeah. Cool." Jinx stared deep into the pink sapphire, then looked at the slit-eyed reflection in the obsidian. She had a glimmer of an idea. "Hey, we could do something with these, right?"

"...Yes, Jinx, people do use earrings, usually by wearing them."

"No I mean-" Jinx chuckled. "Like we can do some magic or something, right? That could be cool."

Raven blinked several times, forming her scattered thoughts. "We could. The silver can link them, and the stones can represent us."

"Oh, that would be nice. Not having to call you and risk the others finding you out, or like earlier today when you couldn't answer."

"...That's a bit like telepathy," Raven said, sceptical. "Are you sure?"

"It's not like reading minds, just a phone."

Raven tapped her chin thoughtfully with a finger. Then she smiled. "Let's do it."

Together, they drew a circle into the surface of the table with a bit of pink chalk Jinx kept handy. Jinx added some flourishes, but took in Raven's writing with rapt attention. A bit of it she recognized as the language of Azarath, but she was quickly lost. Raven placed the studs in the centre, then linked hands with Jinx, forming them into a circle as well.

Jinx somehow knew without asking that she didn't have to do anything more than focus on the circle. Raven chanted her familiar mantra, Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos, over and over. Jinx grinned as she saw black tendrils waft about in a weird dance, seemingly more playfully than usual, as if they were happy.

Raven was weird when she was high.

Soon enough, Jinx felt her magic respond, blending and flowing with Raven's own again, mixing into the studs in the circle. Then, suddenly, the spell ended.

"...That should do it," Raven said.

Jinx took the pink stud and put it in her ear with some effort. Her ear was pierced, but she didn't habitually wear any if she expected trouble, which was most of the time. Then she slapped her forehead. "Oh, duh! You don't have a piercing!"

Raven casually picked up the obsidian stud, examined it, and then pushed it into her ear without even opening it first. It was placed perfectly as she drew her hands away.

Jinx leaned in, turning her head this way and that as she examined Raven's ear. There was no blood, and the stud was in as if the ear had been pierced all along.

"Babe. How did you do that?"

Raven blinked, then frowned. "...I have no idea."

They looked into each other's eyes, then giggled again. Jinx felt a very strange sensation, as if invisible pleasant bubbles were emanating from Raven and bursting all over her mind. "Whoah. What's this sensation?"

"Well… I should probably have told you about my empathic powers earlier. So I decided to level the playing field. You can… sense my emotions now."

Jinx looked at Raven, dumbfounded.

"...It won't always be this strong. I must regulate my emotions to maintain control. But when we are close like this, you will always feel a little-"

Jinx didn't let her finish, bowling her over in a tight hug. Raven held her tightly, and Jinx felt a pleasant warmth from her. Somehow, she understood it to be affection.

"We still need to seal the enchantment," Raven said. "We can mix blood or some other part of us-"

Jinx summoned a bit of her magic and kissed Raven. Almost immediately, she felt the strange new sensations solidify in her mind.

"...That works," Raven said ruefully.

"And so does this," Jinx said, moving in for another attack, delighting in the emotions she was provoking in Raven for a good long while.


	6. Careful

Raven walked into the common room of the Tower, still feeling slightly giddy from either the joints or Jinx. Or a combination of both.

She discreetly sniffed her hoodie, the hood comfortably enveloping her head. Jinx's scent was stronger now. Was it really theft if she let the victim know she'd stolen her clothes and the victim thought it was cute? Surely not.

"Raven? Where have you been?"

She looked up. Robin was in the middle of preparing dinner, which looked to be his specialty shepherd's pie again.

"...Around. I've been gathering some information, and-"

Robin raised one finger, quieting her. She looked at him quizzically as he sniffed the air.

"Raven, please answer me honestly."

"...Have I ever not?"

"Why do you smell like marijuana?"

Oh. Right. She'd been too focused on Jinx's scent to think about that. "Like I said, I was gathering information. Let's just say my source left us both smelling like this."

Robin frowned at her, and she frowned back.

"Since when do you know people who smoke reefers?"

"No one calls them that, Robin. The condition they set was that it be anonymous, including from you."

Robin put away a utensil, walked to Raven and put a hand on her shoulder. "I just want you to know that if it ever comes to that, you can open up about it. We won't judge you. We're here to help you if you need us."

"...Ugh." She batted the hand off, but smiled. "Thank you for your concern. I mean it. Now do you want to know what I learned or not?"

He nodded and she retrieved the piece of paper Jinx had given her. "An item matching this description was bought by an unknown local magician at a time that fits the elemental attacks. I think I may know what it is, but I need to confirm it to be sure."

Robin took it in and nodded. "This could be crucial. Good work. Go get a shower before dinner, alright?"

"...The weed scent won't ruin the smell of Alfred's recipe, Robin." But she smiled and walked off.

Robin watched her go, then narrowed his eyes at the hand he'd rested on Raven's shoulder, examining it closely. Visible against the green glove was a long, pink hair.

Raven hid her head in her cloak the next morning, acutely conscious of the obsidian stud in her ear. The shadows cast by the hood would hide it, but keeping it up might be suspicious by itself. Fortunately, the other Titans seemed to consider it a sign of her determination as she paged through book after book in the common room.

She could have simply removed the stud, of course. But then she wouldn't know if Jinx contacted her, so that was clearly not a realistic option. She would just have to not make really obvious magical artifacts with her while high again.

And, also, tell everyone soon. When this crisis was over.

She flipped the pages quickly. Now that she knew what she was looking for, the search would go much quicker. Although surely it would also go quicker if Beast Boy weren't hovering around her. His emotional indecision weighed almost as much on her mind as his.

Beast Boy's opportunity wasn't far off. Starfire left the room to give Silkie her daily brushing, Robin left for his investigation room, and Cyborg decided the T-car needed love.

Raven tried not to smirk as she felt Beast Boy's slowly building determination. The green boy sauntered slowly towards her.

"Sooooo, Raven. Um..."

"...I have a girlfriend now who is a bank robber and who kicked us out of our house once," she finished for him without looking up. "Isn't that weird?"

Beast Boy gaped at her, then sighed dejectedly. "She told you."

"...She told me." She patted the sofa next to her. He took the invitation.

"So but, like, how? When? Why"

"I… like talking with her. And you saw our first kiss, unless I'm mistaken."

"I can't believe you actually arrested your girlfriend."

Raven looked at him flatly. "That's… seriously your objection here."

"I've had time to get used to the rest!" He grabbed his head with both hands. "Gah! What even are you two?"

"Well… we haven't really said we're girlfriends, for one. We've both decided that whatever this is, we can't let it interfere with each other. For now."

"So you're just going to arrest her and then kiss her sorry after?"

"It has worked so far." She sighed and set her book aside. "Beast Boy, you can tell the others if you really want to. It's fine."

"Fine? But you're keeping it secret!"

"We have an ongoing crisis and the team doesn't need distractions. I plan to tell everyone when it's over and we're ready to have those difficult conversations. But if you really feel guilty about it, it is for the best that you tell them now."

"No! I mean… I just… ugh. It shouldn't come from me, I guess."

"But how do you feel about it?" It was difficult at best to sort out Beast Boy's emotional confusion.

"I guess… I don't know. I've noticed that you're… happier."

Raven was alarmed. "It's noticeable?"

"If you know about it. I guess… I feel a bit like I felt over… you know, Terra. What I'd do if she'd have come back."

"...Yeah. I know. I've had that thought too."

"Look, just…" Beast Boy scratched his ear thoughtfully. "If this is serious, you probably can't keep doing what you have been doing. You know that, right? Are you ready for that? Is she? Sooner or later one of you has to make a choice and it's not like you're gonna turn into a thief."

"...I believe in her. Even if she doesn't." Jinx had convinced her she could be something other than a thief, now. Jinx just hadn't convinced herself.

"Well if you end this problem soon, she better start believing quick. I just… don't want to see you get hurt."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not wrong. Thank you."

The relief from Beast Boy was small but palpable. She paged through her book, thinking about what he'd said. He really was right. And she'd known it, but not faced it. Was she really sparing her team trouble in crisis, or were Jinx and her just prolonging the inevitable?

Her train of thought crashed to a halt as she turned a page and saw the image on it. "I found it," she said out loud. "This is what our mystery magician is using."

Beast Boy leaned over curiously. "What is it?"

"It's called a weather stick," Robin explained at the hasty briefing half an hour later. "Some cultures around the world have made these to help predict and encourage good weather."

"However," Raven smoothly took over. "When Europeans were migrating and colonizing during the so-called age of discovery, European magicians travelled with them and encountered these staves and learned how to alter them to command the elements instead. I now believe the source of the elementals is one of these staves. Most of them are believed to be lost, but it is our most likely bet."

The picture projected on the wall showed Raven's hasty sketch of what it looked like. It looked like a simple staff the size of a walking stick, carved with symbols, but bound at the top and bottom with iron bands. "The important detail for the one we are looking for is this," she said, pointing to the top of the staff with a laser pointer. "It's a crystal skull. Fake, I believe, but it points to its origin as being South American. Whoever originally stole and altered it probably added it as a gaudy trophy."

"Alright, so we look for someone with an out of season Halloween decoration," Cyborg said. "What else do we need to know?"

"The iron symbolizes that the staff is binding the elements, and you probably noticed by now that all the elementals we've fought have been chained with iron too. Those shackles have to be manually made for each one as part of their summoning, and it takes more than mechanical skill." She turned off the projector and flicked on the lights. "Fortunately, it means we aren't going to face an endless horde of them. Unfortunately, our mystery summoner is slowly getting better at it."

"So there's a limit to how many this summoner can control?"

"No. And that's worrying in two ways. One, there could be a lot more than we've fought, waiting to be released. Two… Whoever is doing this doesn't seem to care about being hidden and seems to be releasing some or all of them as he goes. My best guess is that our magician is either using the attacks as cover for other crimes, or else just enjoys inflicting destruction."

"I've gone over police reports from the last few months," Robin cut in. "There's no clear correlation with any crimes."

"That does not leave us with a pleasant conclusion," Starfire said.

Cyborg frowned. "Great. A firebug with a magic stick. Is it anyone we know?"

Raven shrugged. "...Unfortunately, we can't be sure. It is a local as far as we know, but of the other three known major magicians in town, none of them fit. Mumbo was out of town for one attack, I can confirm that Jinx was busy at Pride during another, and May-Eye was apparently under the effects of one of her own pies during the last one."

Raven glared at Beast Boy's clearly emoted but suppressed amusement. "Yeah I bet Jinx got busy with you at Pride," he whispered entirely too loudly.

Raven sighed internally. She should have known better than to assume he would be mature about this. "Yes, Beast Boy, we totally snuck off to make kissy faces with each other during Pride. Very mature. Can we focus?"

Beast Boy's astonishment was met with the rest of the team's mild amusement. Raven was pretty satisfied, herself. Jinx's idea to hide in plain sight worked entirely too well; in the days after the bank robbery, Cyborg had cracked far too many jokes about how affectionate Jinx had been. That worked in her favour now.

"That's all we know for now," Robin said. "But now we know what we're looking for. Let's get to it." With those words, the meeting ended, and the other teens filtered out of the room.

Raven frowned and hesitated as Robin gathered up his notes. There was a suspicion burrowing in him, and it was emoted strongly at her.

"...Is something wrong?" She asked after she was sure the others were gone.

"How can you be sure your mystery source isn't the one behind this?"

She considered how to answer this. "My source… wants to end the crisis as soon as possible, and took a risk telling me as much as they did. And I didn't sense any deception."

"So they are a magician," he said. "Or you'd have said they're incapable of it."

Raven frowned. She hated when he got cagey and suspicious like this, and now was not the time. "...Robin, if I had a reason to suspect foul play, I would tell you. I want this situation to end quickly, too."

"You can't trust a criminal's intentions. Not even if they themselves believe they have only good ones."

"What do you mean?"

"The criminal world isn't one where people trust each other. The minute they suspect betrayal, they won't hesitate to turn on you."

Raven was confused by Robin's emotions. On one hand, he had his normal determination and contempt for criminals encircling his mind like a vice. On the other, the sense of protectiveness and compassion he was emoting over her like a blanket was as strong as Cyborg's when he was in what she liked to call 'big brother mode.'

"...Trust isn't easy for me either," she said. "I know how this works. I'll do my best."

Robin's face relaxed. His emotions did not. "I know you'll do your best. You always do. Just be careful, Raven."

"I will." Raven couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this exchange than Robin's words had let on. She quickly put it out of her mind as the obsidian stud in her ear let her know Jinx wanted contact, like a gentle tap on a window.

Half an hour later, she stood in a nondescript alley by the industrial district, a few blocks away from the docks. Jinx had to let her in blind; they'd both agreed that Raven knowing how to get into the HIVE base was work information. This wasn't even the same alley she had been led through the last time.

"Alright," Jinx's voice came from behind. "Let's make this quick."

Raven didn't turn around, instead letting Jinx approach. A bag was slowly placed over her head and secured so there wouldn't be any peeking. Then Jinx hugged her tightly.

"Thanks for coming so quickly."

"...Of course."

Raven let herself be led by the hand through a confusing series of exacting steps, of which she expected only a fraction to be necessary. Then without ceremony, Jinx removed the blindfold bag and kissed her on the cheek.

Raven took in the situation. The HIVE common room was a mess like before, but slightly less so. Jinx had clearly attempted some cleaning. Jinx herself was wearing a purple tee and black boxers. She walked to the couch, pulled a blanket over herself and grabbed a cereal box, scooping a handful of sugary treats from it directly into her mouth.

"...That bad, huh?" Raven asked.

Jinx nodded and patted the couch. Raven sat down with her and was immediately engulfed by Jinx clinging to her. Raven softly held her, trying not to look at the crumbs Jinx was leaving on them both.

On the TV was a documentary on superheroes. The listless, slightly despondent emotions weighing on Jinx's mind responded to every heroic act displayed on the screen, deepening her mood further.

 _Just talk when you're ready,_ Raven sent her silently through the earrings. _You don't have to at all._

Jinx sighed, a slight hint of contentment breaking through the despondent morass in her. _This is nice. I like this. I like you._

She felt Jinx's emotions respond to the ones she was emoting, a mutual fondness building between them. She would never in a thousand years have made those earrings normally, but now she was glad she did.

"Are most people you save like Em and Kate?" Jinx asked suddenly.

"...Hardly. It's possible that most of them are good or important to someone, but I have no way of really knowing."

"You could. Telepath."

"And it's important that I don't." She hesitated. "Remember that photographer at Pride?"

Jinx nodded, a few crumbs shaking loose. For once, there was no angry spike in Jinx at that reminder.

"It's like I said then. I would save him too. I probably have before. I have saved you as well, long before we were… this. Because I can't know if everyone is an Em or Kate. I can't make that judgment or be selective. I can't know or decide who deserves it."

Jinx nodded again. "You just trust that enough people are kind to make up for it."

Raven poked Jinx's chin. "...You convinced me of that. If I had refused to save you before, where would you be now? Where would Em and Kate?"

Jinx took a deep, slightly shuddering breath. The emotions in her didn't evaporate, but they weighed less on her. "And… that has to be enough?"

"It has. It's... almost certain that someone whose life I've saved has gone on to do terrible things. But I also know, for a fact, that a thief I've saved showed kindness and has materially improved lives." She gently took Jinx's hand. "Mine included."

Jinx's fondness bubbled in her mind. "Dork."

Raven smiled slightly. "I… have doubted myself. It's not an easy path."

"Back at the academy they taught us it was about ego. I guess it's true sometimes, but…"

"...Now it doesn't feel right?"

"Yeah. Not now that I've done it."

Raven closed her eyes and rested her head against Jinx's. "It's okay. I'm here for you."

"I guess…" Jinx grabbed a handful of cereal and messily stuffed it in her face. _I guess I'm grateful that you haven't been pushing me. Wow, this is useful for eating._

"I'm still not going to ask you to quit everything and become a full time hero, either."

 _But would you like me to?_ Jinx asked, swallowing. "Like, if you had a choice?"

Raven considered this. "A selfish part of me thinks that would make some things easier. But while they would be easier for me, the same isn't necessarily true for you. Whatever we do, it has to suit both of us."

"I guess maybe the hero stuff suits me more than I thought, but… that's helpful. Thanks."

Raven surprised Jinx by reaching into the cereal box, grabbing a handful and stuffing it in her mouth.

 _I still have no idea what our future holds and I worry about it,_ Raven sent as she chewed. _Beast Boy said we are going to have to make hard choices together and I think I've been avoiding that._

Jinx looked up at her. "Smart kid. You know, for being a dumbass. Wanna sit here with me and avoid it some more?"

"Please," Raven said.

Jinx offered the box and they each took a handful.

 _Mammoth knows about us, by the way._ Jinx's sending came with a bit of apprehension. _I don't know how and he didn't say it in so many words, but… he made it pretty obvious. That's what made my day like this._

"You're in contact?"

Jinx nodded. "He uses his phone calls to call me. Sweet guy. He didn't really say we weren't friends anymore or anything and Gizmo doesn't know yet but… he said to be careful. And if he knows, other criminals probably suspect something."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm going to lie low, eat cereal, and not get myself into a situation where some dude with a grudge stabs me in the back for being a side-switching lovesick snitch."

"...I can go buy groceries for you."

"That's sweet, but I'm not going to ask you to buy me weed."

"Marijuana is not part of the groceries, Jinx."

Jinx threw a piece of cereal in Raven's face, making her sputter. "It is in my house."

Raven frowned. "If someone does come after you-"

"Call you immediately. I know." She nibbled another bit of cereal. "It just makes me think whether I have a choice at all in switching sides just for the protection."

"...Want to avoid that topic too?"

"Let's. We have plenty of cereal."

“...And an awful lot of topics to avoid.” Raven summoned another box from the kitchen.

Jinx was true to her word when it came to lying low, Raven mused as she stood atop a dockside warehouse after an hour on night patrol. She had left the base only once in a whole week, and then only with Raven to accompany her. Raven had even made good on her offer to buy groceries - not including 'stuff.'

She felt Jinx send a brief emotional burst at her. Just a dab of fondness, warm and pleasant. The minute they'd learned how to send images and feelings to each other, Jinx had taken to it with gusto. It had eased Raven's frustration at the lack of progress, not to mention Robin's continued suspicion, and she knew it was helping Jinx with her self-imposed isolation.

Raven was wondering what her reply should be when she heard the noise of a nearby scuffle. She ran across the roof, glided to the next rooftop, and glanced down. Between two warehouses, a pair of men dressed in motorcycle helmets and leather - bikers, she supposed - were accosting a third.

She didn't need to know more. It was time to break it up. She melted into a shadow and emerged behind the two men, her soul rising up into a terrifying image.

"Hey," she said.

The two assailants looked back at Raven and saw the demon-like birds towering over them, blotting out the light of the moon.

"Scram," she said.

They didn't. They simply looked at her, faces hidden behind the visored helmets, completely unafraid. Raven blinked.

"...Well this suddenly got awkward," she muttered. She wasn't used to people ignoring her shadows.

The third man got up from where he lay and took station with the other two men, dressed exactly like them. Raven realized that it wasn't just that she couldn't sense any fear from them. She couldn't sense any emotions at all.

She dissipated the illusion and stepped back, only to be stopped by a fourth man. It was like she had backed into a solid wall. Before she knew what was happening, this new arrival grabbed her by the arm, leaving her open to a full punch in the midsection from one of the others.

She gasped for air as the force of the blow knocked her into a wall, cracking it, dust cascading over her as she coughed. She compartmentalized the pain, but a groan still escaped her. She raised her hand at her attackers.

"Azarath, Metrion-" before she could finish her incantation, a burning pain in her arm stopped her, making her hiss. Around her wrist, where the fourth man had grabbed her, was an iron shackle.

She dodged to the side just in time to avoid a punch so powerful it burst the wall apart. She yelled and kicked one assailant in the head, then flinched as she withdrew, the man's neck barely having moved from the attack. It was like kicking solid stone.

She wasn't fast enough to avoid a kick to her back which sent her flying into a wall again face first. She tried to fly, but only barely slowed her trajectory down, crashing hard into the bare cement.

She tried to melt into shadow, but her shackled arm wouldn't follow the rest of her body. She tried transforming herself, but to no effect. A terrible stinging pain told her something in her chest was broken. She locked the pain away as best she could.

The shackle was clearly like those the elementals had all been bound in, but there was more to it. She recognized the feeling of a meta-dampening cuff. And she wasn't as good with those as Jinx was, to put it mildly.

She tried to run, but a hand closed around her other arm, and a small click of metal told her another shackle had been placed on her. Her attackers quickly grabbed her and slammed her to the ground, face down, holding every limb in place. It was like being held down by a landslide; they didn't budge no matter how much she squirmed. As she lay, head forced to its side, she noted a tell-tale iron band around the arm of one of her attackers. These were no humans. The summoner had gotten better again. These small fry were each as dense and strong as the first stone beast she'd fought all those weeks back, but at a fraction of the size.

Then a voice spoke.

"There's fire in that magic of yours somewhere, isn't there? I've been feeling it ever since I got my toy."

Raven had heard that voice before. It was incredibly familiar. But she just couldn't place it.

"As soon as I finish this collar you're mine, Titan. I'll bring out the fire in you. And together we are going to rock this city apart!"

Raven panicked, unable to contain her emotional response. Black tendrils of power rose from her and lashed out feebly, not even nudging what she now knew were earth elementals. Not even one street lamp cracked. Instead, all she felt was an intense burning heat as the shackles inflamed an inner fire deep in her, a fire she could never allow to escape.

She gathered her pain, her memories, every detail she could think of, and sent them out all at once in a single mental burst.

"Please," she whispered. "Please help me, Jinx!"

In the depths of the HIVE base, Jinx sat up with a start.

"Raven?!"


	7. Captured

Jinx's mind went into overdrive, trying to sort through the mental jumble from Raven. She thought she recognized the warehouses. The problem was getting there fast enough.

She quickly made her way to Gizmo's workshop, unlocking it easily with a swipe of her magic at his customized keypad lock, and strode to a large tarp-covered object in the corner. She pulled the cover off in one motion and nodded to herself.

Gizmo was going to kill her, but Raven was worth it.

The heat emanating from Raven was beginning to scorch the leather gloves holding her down. Two more shackles had been placed on her legs, each one drawing out more of her fire-aspected magic. Fire, and worse.

"Time to see how hot you burn, little girl." The spell was complete, the neck shackle lowering towards her.

A loud machine roar suddenly filled the alley. Jinx revved the engine, and Gizmo's mono-bike answered. It was a weird contraption; a gyroscopically stabilized one-wheel craft with a seat for the pilot in the center. It was too small for her, but she didn't need ergonomic seating for what she was about to do.

"Hey, pal! Hands off the Titan!" Jinx growled.

There were five bikers in the alley. Four were identically dressed. Those would be the elementals from Raven's vision, Jinx reasoned. The fifth was also decked out in leather, his helmet a German steel cap, face hidden behind a bandana and his eyes covered in thick goggles. In his hand was a staff exactly matching the description Jinx had bought.

The biker stood up straight. "Yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it, little girl?"

As her answer, she revved the mono-bike again, driving into a nearby stack of random alleyway junk she could see. She ramped off it, aiming directly at the group.

The unknown wizard ducked out of the way. The earth elementals didn't. The weight of the bike crashed into them, pushing them off Raven. Jinx jumped off the mono-bike in mid-air, landed deftly next to Raven, and fired a hex bolt at the bike.

Whatever fuel additive it was Gizmo used, it certainly was volatile. The mono-bike exploded, sending earth elementals flying. One was struck directly and shattered apart.

Jinx quickly knelt next to Raven, examining her as best she could. Just touching her burned her fingertips. "Can you stand up?" She asked.

Raven tried. _Something… interfering… magic…_ Raven had trouble moving even without being held, all her mental focus reserved on keeping her power in check. Jinx nodded, understanding all of this in a flash with Raven's mental message.

Jinx then flipped deftly away as a red bolt of magic struck the spot where she had been standing. The wizard had drawn some kind of metal shard and was using it like a gun.

"I don't know what you want with this Titan, little girl, but she's mine. Get your own!"

"Yeah?" She snapped a finger, and the metal shard snapped in two in a pink flash. "And how are you going to stop me?"

The wizard raised his staff. As one, the three remaining elementals, now in various states of undress and being on fire, snapped to attention and rushed towards Jinx.

Jinx quickly shot her magic into the earth. The first elemental was swallowed into a sudden fissure which then closed around it. She flipped away from a shockingly quick strike and used the same spell directly on the second attacker. Cracks spread across its surface as it tore itself apart with its own movement, crumbling where it stood, leaving only a leather jacket on a pile of rubble.

The third came in too quickly and landed a solid hit in Jinx's midsection. Even with her being prepared, she felt the wind being knocked out of her. She flew backwards, rolling several times, only barely staying on her feet. She coughed and gasped.

The unknown wizard cocked his head, swinging his staff at the one remaining elemental. It ceased its attack. He then raised the staff to his ear as if he were listening to the crystal skull. He nodded several times.

"Hey, that's right. You're Jinx. I heard about this trick of yours. My staff here is telling me your magic has some affinity with earth."

Jinx frowned as she recovered her breath. "Yeah? What's it to you?" This was news to her, even if it made sense to her.

"That means that maybe I don't have to just settle for a Titan. I've got two new pets!"

Jinx spat, carefully watching for another attack. "Wouldn't bet on that, pal. I'm not letting you take me."

The wizard waved the staff. From somewhere beyond a wall, several air elementals, each as large as the one she'd defeated before, emerged to flank the wizard. "And how are you gonna stop me?" He asked, mockingly mimicking her voice. "You didn't bring your friends."

Jinx smiled and silently held up an object. It was Raven's communicator, deftly snatched when she'd knelt beside her earlier. On it was a red blinking light; the emergency alarm had been triggered.

"I brought hers," she said.

As if on cue, a voice spoke from above.

"Titans! Go!"

Cyborg went for the wizard himself in hand to hand combat. The air elementals were forced back as Beast Boy blew one away with massive beats of wings. Starfire used her starbolts to simply burn one away, draining it of oxygen.

"Why didn't I think of that," Jinx muttered. She moved to rescue Raven, but was surprised by Robin dropping in front of her. She backed up, assuming a fighting stance, acutely aware of Raven's distress.

Robin reached for his chest with a quick and deliberate motion, unhooking his cape from his costume.

"Uh. What are you doing?" Jinx asked.

"The black side is thermally insulated," Robin said, gathering the cloak in his arm. "We'll need it to help Raven."

"...How did you know-"

"There's no time." With that, he turned around and threw an exploding disc into the fray, momentarily distracting an opponent enough for Starfire to take it out. "Help, or don't get in the way."

"Hey!" She followed him to where Raven lay, now in a fetal position, the asphalt under her melting into sludge. Robin carefully wrapped one end of his cloak around his gloved hands and retrieved a lockpick. "We have to be quick. She-"

"Got one," Jinx said, tossing a cuff aside with her wrapped hands. "Work faster."

Robin looked at her, shocked.

"Oh hell no!" The wizard shouted, noticing what they were doing. "She's mine!" With that imperious command, he pointed his staff at Raven.

Raven screamed and convulsed in pain. The lockpick in Robin's hand melted, and he was forced back as her body lit on fire. He threw another disc at him.

Jinx took the cloak in her hands and threw it around Raven as she kept working. The cuff on her other hand came loose quickly. She hissed as she burned her hands.

"Here!" Robin said, throwing her his gloves as he helped cover Raven in the blanket to suffocate the flames. "Quickly!"

Jinx quickly put them on and moved to Raven's legs. One shackle fell off, then the other. As soon as the final one fell away, the flames died out.

"Damnit!" The wizard threw something into the ground when he knew his gambit had failed. A blinding flash overpowered everyone's senses, and then the distinct sound of a revving motorcycle told them where he'd gone. Starfire moved to follow, but one final air elemental grappled her in midair.

Jinx didn't pay it any mind. _Raven. Raven, are you okay?_

_I can't… I can't move or see. Look at me and show me._

Jinx peeked under the cape. She heard Robin's gasp behind her, and she fought to keep her lunch inside her. It wasn't as bad as she'd expected, but the image she sent Raven was not pretty nonetheless.

_So that's a no on being okay,_ came Raven's sardonic reply. Jinx almost burst out laughing at the dry tone. _This will… probably heal. Aside from the eyes._

"No," Jinx said, placing her hand on Raven. She began the healing spell. It flickered and warped, but nonetheless worked it's magic. It was far too little.

_Jinx, it's not going to be enough-_

"I'm not letting you stay like this, Raven!" She redoubled her effort, using both hands, pouring herself into the spell like she never had before.

Raven didn't reply for a long moment. Then Jinx felt Raven's hand shakily envelop hers. _You will hurt yourself like this,_ she sent. _Jinx. Please._

"Raven, I don't care how powerful you are! No one just bounces back from this! I can't- I-"

"I'm sorry," Raven whispered, and Jinx felt something enter her mind. It was strange, alien, and yet familiar. She felt as it guided her movements, spoke with her mouth, and added to her power. Doubled it. Tripled it. More and more of it washed through her being, far more than she'd ever felt before.

She watched as the healing spell glowed with an intensity as bright as the flashbang, but she felt no need to avert her eyes. She simply continued to pour the magic out. It shone so brightly in her that her skin seemed translucent. She knew she was crying, the tears shining like stars.

An eternity passed in a moment, and the light receded as if slowly drawn into Raven's body. Jinx shook like a leaf as she took Robin's cloak with her own healed hands and moved it aside. Raven's body was pristine, her eyes looking up at hers. She heard Robin's surprised gasp behind her again.

"You're looking good as usual," Jinx said, her breath hitching. She sent the image to Raven.

"I'm so sorry," Raven said, a tear forming in her eye as they closed and she lay still.

"Raven? Raven, no, please!"

Robin bent over Raven and put two fingers on her neck. "She's breathing. She's alive. Jinx, relax."

Jinx blinked and sent thoughts to Raven, but there was no reply. It was like she was casting them into a void. She tried to get up, but her legs failed her and she fell backwards into someone's arms. Voices spoke at her but she didn't understand them.

"Raven, please…" her vision blurred, and her mind was lost in fog. Who was this girl holding her? Most girls didn't have orange skin. She tried to recall, but soon she knew no more.

Jinx awoke in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed. She tested her arms, and found that one of them was cuffed to a metal railing on the bed itself. After some effort and a lot of aching and blinking, she managed to open her eyes and survey the surroundings properly.

Fluorescent lights. Equipment that went beep - heart rate monitors? She wasn’t much of a medic. Sterile smell. Some kind of medical facility.

She turned her head and her heart caught in her throat. On the bed next to hers, Raven lay perfectly still, an IV drip hooked up to her arm.

“Ra-” Jinx coughed as mucus got caught in her throat. How long had she been lying there? “Raven? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

There was no response. Jinx choked back her concern and tested her limbs again. She could move. She easily slipped her hand out of the cuff the way she’d done a hundred times before, then slowly stood up, fighting vertigo the whole way. Fortunately, there was a dinky metal chair she could collapse in next to Raven’s bed. She did so with as much grace as she could muster and took Raven’s hand in hers.

“Hey, come on, babe,” she croaked. “You’re tougher than me. I healed you. Don’t make me pull through before you do.” She looked at the cords and wires trailing from Raven’s body and into various monitors. Raven was, at least, alive.

The door to the room opened. Jinx glanced its way. It looked like Robin had come to visit, which told Jinx she was probably in the Titans’ Tower. Oh, she was so screwed.

“I guess I should have known better than to think the cuff would hold you after last time,” Robin said. There wasn’t a trace of humor in his voice. “Magic is tricky to deal with.”

“Don’t need magic on a crappy cuff.” Jinx idly ran her free hand through her hanging limp hair, not a trace of its usual fighting spirit to be found. “Besides, I don’t think there’s any magic in me after what I did.”

It scared her a little. She had never felt so depleted, so empty. And right now, she was weak, without her magic, next to Robin, probably in the Tower itself. She had never in her life been so vulnerable. She grasped Raven’s hand a little tighter.

“Whatever you did probably saved Raven’s life,” Robin said, nodding. “I couldn’t help but notice that it seemed familiar.”

“Lots of witches know the same spells,” she deflected. “How long was I out?”

“Just over twenty-four hours.” Robin slowly walked to another chair, pulled it closer to Raven’s bed, and sat in it. He carefully maintained a respectful six feet of distance to Jinx, she noted. "Hungry?"

Her stomach already felt like it was about to empty itself. "No. Do you know who that guy was yet?”

“We do, but you don’t need to concern yourself with that right now.”

“I will make it my concern if I please, bird boy.”

“Make it, how?”

She glared at him.

He shrugged. “So, how many witches know the magical language of Azarath?”

“Where?” She asked, deflecting again.

“The place your girlfriend is from.”

Jinx felt the sweat forming on her back. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Robin took out a little pad, flicked it, and tossed it next to Jinx’s hand on the bed. She drew it closer and swiped, taking the pictures in dully. Her and Raven at the pizza restaurant, clearly photographed covertly by someone else there who had recognized them. A social media post about the ‘superhero cosplayers’ holding hands at Pride, displaying another photo of them declaring them to be Bi Icons in large embarrassing letters. A clip of them fighting the elemental monsters together, complete with the kiss on the cheek. An excerpt from a story that was clearly referencing them by different names, under the pen name Em_By. A picture of a pink hair in an evidence baggie. A grocery bill. Each one annotated with dates, times, and further notes in small, strict handwriting. Robin allowed her all the time she needed to carefully take it all in.

“These are very nice,” Jinx said, internally cursing her carelessness. “But she’s still not my girlfriend.”

“What kind of friends kiss, Jinx?”

“Good question.” She looked at Raven’s sleeping face. “I guess we’re like… frenemies with benefits or something?”

Robin’s brow furrowed. “That’s… not a thing.”

“And we’re not a thing. Like… we’re not on the same side. We still fight. I do crimes and she fights back and it’s just like that. She even caught me that one time, remember? We haven’t just outright said that we’re…” she couldn’t find it in herself to finish the sentence.

“A thing,” Robin finished.

“Right. That.” Jinx shook her head and regretted it instantly. “How long have you known?”

“Not long enough. I still need to chew out Beast Boy.”

“Raven did tell him to tell you guys,” Jinx said. “The whole not being on the same side thing gets in the way, you know? So we just talk, and yeah, we hold hands and kiss and stuff too and that's it. Kinda hard to build a relationship around having to fight each other all the time.”

“You were her informant. Why?”

“Because-” She frowned. “Because she was slowly killing herself trying to solve this on her own.” She gave Raven’s sleeping body a meaningful look. “Didn’t really help us with the killing her part.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed. “I want to know why… this.”

“Why what?” Jinx narrowed her eyes at him right back. “Why me? Why her? Why this thing that isn’t a thing? That’s what we’ve been figuring out. We’re not sure why.” She looked back at Raven, sighing. “She does understand a lot more about me than most people, though. Talking with her is just… interesting, and fun, and we can talk about a lot we can’t with other people.”

“About magic?”

Jinx closed her eyes. “Yeah, that too. You got me. She gave me the book I got that spell from. World’s second greatest detective solved another mystery.”

“The spell you saved her life with.”

Jinx blinked. “You make it sound like an accusation.”

“I’m... not ungrateful,” Robin admitted. “None of us are. We just want to know how you were the one to find her first. We didn’t even know she was in danger until you called.”

Jinx shrugged. At this point there was no harm in just laying out all the cards. “She called out to me magically. We made a linked pair of artifacts we could use to contact each other.”

“The earrings,” Robin said. Jinx gingerly touched her ear. It was gone.

“Another mystery solved by the fearless Robin,” Jinx quipped. “And I mean, you tell me. Why did she call me?”

“She trusted you with her life,” Robin said, leaning in closer. “She knew you would come for her and help her, and you did.”

“She… what?” Jinx felt goosebumps rising up and down her arms. “But… We can’t really trust each other like that...”

“And,” Robin said, leaning in further, his eyes boring into hers, “you proved her right. You did save her life.”

Jinx shuddered. “I… I don’t… why?”

“That is what I want to know, too. Why?” Robin sat up straight again. “Out of all the Titans, I trust her judgment the most after mine. I’ve never known her to be wrong in her instincts, and always put my faith in her. She's also slow to trust anyone."

He gave Jinx a look she had trouble interpreting behind that mask. He didn't seem happy.

"And yet I learned that she’s made ‘frenemies with benefits’ with a hardened criminal, who she’s apparently been seeing for many weeks without telling any of us. And then that criminal uncharacteristically rescued her, saved her life, and risked both prison and her own life to do it.”

Jinx forced her throat to let her speak. “She… I… I’ve never had anyone place that much faith in me before. I don’t think I could do that with anyone.”

“Not even her?”

Jinx’s gaze faltered and she looked down into her own lap.

“Whatever else is true, she wasn’t wrong to believe you’d rescue her. I would never have believed it myself. But that’s why I trust her judgment.”

Jinx didn’t look up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ll have to find out when she wakes up.” Robin stood up. “Is your magic going to recover?”

“With my luck? Probably,” she said bitterly. She felt empty, but at the same time, there was an enticing relief in the idea that it would never come back at all. “Doing magic that doesn’t fit your aspect takes a lot out of you. It’s the same with her and the whole… evil thing.”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know about that?”

“She trusted me with that too, yes.” Jinx felt her chest tighten. Raven had trusted her with so much, and she was only just now realizing. She felt terrible.

Robin looked at her, then frowned again. “You need rest.”

“Not leaving her side to be cuffed again, bird boy. I'll sleep in this chair if I have to."

Robin took that in, then moved to the other side of Raven’s bed. He performed some complicated maneuver that lowered the metal railing on that side, then went to another bed and unstuck its wheels. He wheeled them so that they were side by side, forming one continuous surface. Jinx watched the maneuver suspiciously.

“Here,” he said. “Now you can rest and be at her side.”

Jinx was shocked. “What? Seriously? You’re just letting me sleep next to her?”

“If it makes you get some rest. We might need your help to get her walking again.” But Robin’s eyes didn’t meet hers for the first time as he gave what Jinx recognized as a terrible excuse.

Robin, of all people, was being nice.

“You don’t trust me. You cuffed me to a bed and now you’re telling me to share one with her?”

“You’re right. I don’t trust you at all.” He looked at Raven’s comatose form. “But I trust her. For now, that’s going to have to be enough.”

“Even after she didn’t tell you about me?”

“Priorities. Health first. Speaking of, you should get into bed before you’re too tired and I have to carry you.”

“Oh, yuck. Never.”

“Exactly,” Robin said, giving her a small smile for the first time. She grinned back and got up slowly, after several false starts. She made her way down to the foot of the bed, leaning on it hard, taking much longer than she was comfortable with.

Robin extended a hand to help. She glared at it until he retracted it. She was going to make it by herself or die trying. She felt his gaze on her the whole way around the beds, the entirely inadequate hospital gown she was wearing not helping her mood.

She finally got all the way around and tried to lift herself into the bed. She couldn’t raise her leg high enough, and her arms couldn’t support her weight enough. She grimaced and groaned until Robin extended his hand again.

She looked at it, then sullenly accepted his help. She felt pathetic as he used almost no strength at all to help her into the bed. “Thanks,” she grumbled.

He nodded. “There’s a button on the wall if you need us,” he said, and left the room without further ado.

Jinx was alone with Raven again. She crawled further onto the bed, lying on her side, looking at Raven’s still face, and snaked her hand into Raven’s again.

“Not how I expected to see your sleeping face again,” Jinx joked without mirth. She took in every detail of Raven’s face again and again, as if she weren’t intimately familiar with them all already.

“You dummy. You giant, massive dork. Why me.” Jinx’s voice trailed off into a whisper. “I don’t even give you the same courtesy back.”

But she had come to Raven’s aid, and to hell with the consequences.

“How am I supposed to deal with this, babe? You can’t just put your heart in my lap and tell me to take care of it like this. No one’s ever done this to me. Why should they? Why do you?”

Raven’s breathing was slow and even. Jinx’s eyes felt wet, and she held herself back.

“Just… how dare you.” She sighed heavily, composing herself. “Is this what it’s like? So scary? So fragile? So…” She searched for words, but couldn't find them.

Raven’s eyes didn’t even move under the eyelids. Whatever sleep she was in, it was sure to be dreamless.

“I don’t know what to do with this, Raven. Come back to me soon so I can return it to you. Please.”

She moved her body closer to Raven's. Raven felt a little colder than usual. She snuggled up as best she could without disturbing her too much, then gently kissed Raven's cheek.

"I don't deserve you," she whispered, and closed her eyes.


	8. Curry

Jinx had no idea how long she'd slept. There was no clock or natural light in this room. At some point, though, someone had covered them both in a blanket and tucked them in together. She looked at Raven, but it seemed she had not budged an inch, and the world felt a little emptier. Like she had been expecting Raven to be there after waking from a bad dream.

She tried to move, but her body somehow felt even more stiff and weak than before. She let out an involuntary groan as a joint popped.

A red head of hair rose from Raven's other side at the noise. The chair had a new occupant. It was none other than Starfire.

"Oh! You are awake! Is there something you need, Jinx? Are you hungry?"

Jinx realized that the chair must have been intended for Starfire in the first place. She also realized that her stomach was growling this time.

"I… yeah, I could eat some food right now."

"Do not move! I will bring nourishing stew!" Before Jinx could even tell her not to bring beef, she had flown away.

She took stock of the situation. Starfire had probably tucked them in. She had no idea how to feel about that. She also didn't know what to think about her staying at Raven's side. Before she could properly sort her feelings out, Starfire had returned with a tray of food.

"It is vegetable stew with spiced tofu," she explained. "I hope you do not mind. It was Beast Boy's turn to make the food tonight."

"That sounds good, actually." She struggled and eventually managed to sit upright and move to the edge of the bed. "What about Raven?"

"She is receiving nutrition intravenomously. It is not ideal."

"Intravenously," Jinx automatically corrected. She spooned a bit of the broth into her mouth and hummed appreciatively. "Oh I needed this."

Jinx ate slowly, but felt increasingly nervous at Starfire's curious gaze on her. Finally she gave up after losing a bit of tofu back into the bowl from her hand shaking.

"Okay, you're staring at me."

"Oh! Apologies. I do not wish to disturb you with questions while you are eating."

"This is going to take some time," Jinx said ruefully. "Ask away."

Starfire's face beamed with delight, causing Jinx to feel nervous again. "How long have you and Raven been doing the dating? When did it happen? How did it come about?"

"Slow down, girl." She chewed on some tofu and swallowed. "Like a couple of months. It happened during that big monster attack back then. We talked after, and she gave me her phone number in case we wanted to talk again and…" she shrugged. It seemed so mundane saying it out loud. "I did want to talk."

"I have seen the pictures Robin found," Starfire said excitedly. "Raven seems very grasped with you! We had no idea she had a girlfriend!"

"Do you mean taken with me? We haven't decided that we are girlfriends yet, actually." Yet. She hadn't appended that before. "The whole opposite sides thing..."

"It is very romantic!"

That had not been what she'd expected. "I… guess?"

"A love blossoming between rivals in conflict, tormenting both with so much of the passion! It is one of my favourite themes!"

Jinx blinked. "It's not really been that dramatic…" She decided it wasn't worth correcting her. "Aren't you angry that she kept it secret from you?"

"What else could she do?" Starfire's eyes grew distant. "A forbidden love, locked in the conflict, forcing her into silence… it is wonderful! I am so very much happy for her!"

Jinx slowly took this in, sipping the broth. She vaguely recalled Raven saying something about the Tamaran sense of justice being strange. "Oookay."

"But I am also curious to learn more about you, Friend Jinx! Raven does not trust easily, and she rarely displays any interest in the romance. You have earned both from her, and quickly. Who are you to have done this?"

The question caused her chest to tighten again. It must have shown on her face, going by Starfire's reaction. "Is something wrong? Was my question inappropriate?"

"Nah, I just wonder the same thing. You'll have to ask Raven when she wakes up." She didn't meet Starfire's eyes.

"I am sorry. I should not be so invasive with my questions. I do not wish to hurt you."

"Why not, though? You're way too okay with this. Don't you care that I am a criminal? That we fight all the time?"

"Raven overcame such obstacles. So shall I. I have trust in Raven, and therefore in you."

"Just because Raven and I are… being kissy together, doesn't mean that you and I are friends."

"Does it not?" Starfire got up and sat next to Jinx. "I have found that such things are only complicated when we make them so. Raven is my friend, and she is in the love with you, and therefore you are my friend also."

Jinx boggled at the idea that it could be so simple for someone. "Aren't you afraid of being betrayed?"

"It is rare, and when it happens, it tells more of the betrayer than the betrayed. It can hurt, but pain will pass."

Jinx took that in. "...How do you even know she is in love with me? She hasn't told me that."

"She is my Beef."

Jinx frowned and tried to work out the logic. "Do… you mean BFF?"

"Indeed! I have known her for several years. And I have never seen her eyes look at anyone like she looks at you before. She despises unwanted touch, but welcomes yours. And she entrusted her life into your care. She is very… prideful. Such a thing would not be easy for her unless she cared for you."

"And I still don't know why," Jinx muttered, focusing on the bowl again. "I didn’t earn it."

"Love is not earned. It is given."

"Yeah? Even to someone like me who is too cowardly to do it back?" Jinx clamped her mouth shut. She was already saying too much. It wasn't like she trusted Starfire either.

Starfire moved closer to Jinx and put one arm around her. Jinx flinched but didn't resist.

"You speak like someone who has been betrayed many times," Starfire said softly.

"Many? Try every time." She didn't bother disguising the bitterness. “Ask Cyborg about that sometime.”

Starfire had the decency to look a little ashamed. After some thought, she spoke again.

"In love," she began, "it is best when faith is mutual. But every person is different. It is harder for some than others. This is not a slight on them, and it takes time." Jinx detected something like sadness and frustration in her voice, as if she were speaking from experience.

"What's your point?"

"She is giving you that time, Jinx. Surprisingly, she simply needed less than you did."

"What if I never can? What then? What if no matter how hard I try, I can never open myself up to her like that?"

"You are saying you are willing to make the effort. Is that not enough for now?"

Jinx didn't have an easy answer. The conversation was exhausting. She slowly used the last of her bread to clean the remaining broth from the bowl. "And what about you? I don't trust you. Are you okay with that?"

Starfire smiled. "I think you have given me and her more faith than you realise. Shall I bring you more food?"

"I just… want to sleep more."

"Ah! Then it is time for your sponge bath first!"

"...Excuse me?!"

Jinx slept and woke up again before she felt strong enough to get dressed in her freshly cleaned clothes, let alone leave the room. Frustratingly, Robin had not returned. Not knowing who the attacker was weighed on her. It was personal.

Even after all that rest, there still was no sign of her magic returning at all. Her hair lay down as limp as ever, and she didn't even stub her toe before putting on her steel-capped boots. She was still unsure if she ever wanted the magic to come back, but it couldn't have left her at a worse possible time. Robin was right; she probably needed it to help Raven.

She kissed Raven's cheek, easily picked the medical ward lock with a pair of pins she'd long since hidden in the lining of her mantle, and slowly made her way to the kitchen. There was no need for a map or guide. She had memorized the layout of the Tower for the H.A.E.Y.P. final exam. If only her old teachers could have seen her now.

She eventually found the common room. It was midday, but there was no Titan in sight. She sat down heavily at the kitchen table, catching her breath.

"What the- what are you doing out here?"

Jinx looked up. Cyborg had just entered the room. He seemed surprised. Her mood instantly dropped.

"I'm hungry. Not that you care about what I feel, tin man."

Cyborg flinched. "That's what the button on the wall was for!"

"I'm not risking Starfire's sponges again in my lifetime, thanks. Just let me do my thing. I'll go back on my own. No need to make this more awkward."

Cyborg shuffled his feet, glancing around the room. "You're not supposed to be unattended outside the med ward while you're here, Jinx."

"So get Beast Boy or something."

"It's just me. Everyone else went out for a… thing." He looked guiltily from side to side.

Jinx frowned. 'Stone's' naivety had been adorable. It was less adorable now. "They're out finding the guy Robin won't tell me about, then. Gods. Fine. Stay and watch me raid the fridge and be quiet."

Cyborg looked at her with a pitying gaze Jinx hated. "You don't look like you're going to raid anything, girl."

"You're very lucky I don't have my magic back."

Cyborg looked at her for a long moment. Then he made his way to the fridge and started taking out various food items, lighting the stove and preparing utensils with a practiced touch.

"What are you doing?" Jinx asked.

"Making something for you."

"Don't." Jinx tried to get up, but her legs failed her.

Cyborg ignored her, and she resolved to sit there, fuming at his back as he worked. She did her best to ignore the oddly familiar smells, instead focusing on her anger.

He'd played with her heart, and never so much as tried to apologize for it. She didn't even care that he'd been a spy; in a place like the old academy, everyone was out for number one. But he hadn't been, really, once she'd gotten to know him.

Or at least, thought she had.

The silence stretched on and on, her glaring at his back, him probably acutely aware of her glare as he chopped and cooked and let simmer. Finally he retrieved what looked like yogurt from the fridge, gave the dish a good dollop and set it in front of her.

She stared. It wasn't anything special, really. A basic chicken curry with rice and a proper, scratch-made sauce served with naan bread. She was surprised he'd had it all on hand.

"You remembered," she said softly.

"I wouldn't forget this recipe. And not just because you taught me how to make it once you got tired of me eating beef around you all the time."

Jinx looked him in the eye questioningly.

"It's one of Raven's favourite dishes. I cook it for her a lot. She likes Indian cuisine and spicy stuff in general."

"...She does?" Jinx asked. She felt terrible again. They'd been dating for two months and she'd never asked what foods Raven liked that whole time.

"And she's going to like it even more when you make it for her. I never did have your special touch."

Jinx blinked. Her breaths were suddenly shallow.

Cyborg smiled. "So you better eat up, get better and make sure she comes back to us in one piece, alright? The other guys maybe don't get what she sees in you, but I do. She made a good choice."

Jinx felt the hot streak running down her chin and sobbed, hiding her eyes with her hand.

Cyborg waved his hands around. "Oh dang! I didn't mean to make you cry! I'm sorry!"

"Shut up," Jinx said, smiling through her tears. She hadn't cried for most of her life, and here she was doing it twice. "Stop being so nice and let me hate you, jerk."

"Only if you mistreat our girl," Cyborg warned, instantly in protective brother mode.

Jinx snorted and dried her tears with her sleeve. "As if I could. Now let me eat this and help me fix her up after."

After fetching a wheelchair for Jinx, the first stop was Raven’s room.

“She doesn’t like us snooping in there…”

“I know, Cy. Tell her it was my idea. It is our best bet for finding something to help.”

Cyborg was still hesitant as he slowly approached and opened the door. Jinx couldn’t help but smile. Raven had her team well trained.

The room was very much as Jinx remembered, aside from a few new odds and ends and much larger bookshelves. Jinx wheeled herself inside and took it in slowly, trying to not miss a single detail. It was gloomy. Books were strewn about the floor, but not haphazardly; several of them were open and arrayed in a circle. Jinx surmised that Raven would have sat floating in the air between them, referencing each one as needed. She dismissed them, reasoning that they had been for research into the weather stick. The large bed looked incredibly inviting, but there would be time for that later.

There’d better be.

The dresser caught her attention. In a little box that looked strangely out of place were the magical earrings they had made together. Jinx immediately swiped them back. After all, one of them was hers. Then a hand mirror caught her eye. She reached out to it.

“Yo! Careful! That thing is dangerous!” Cyborg actually dared to step inside the room to give that warning.

Jinx hesitated. “What is it?”

“It’s some kind of magic portal into Raven’s mind. It’s scary and dangerous in there! Just looking into that mirror will send you right in!”

“Like her,” Jinx said wryly. “That could be useful, actually.” Before Cyborg could stop her, she looked into the mirror.

She looked at her own eyes expectantly, then with disappointment. The mirror wasn’t doing anything. “Doesn’t look like it’s working. That… could be bad.”

“Bad how?” asked Cyborg.

She glanced at him. “If it’s a portal into her mind, it might mean her mind isn’t accessible at all. Or-” She looked back into the mirror and nearly dropped it in shock.

Staring back at her was Raven.

“What’s wrong? What do you see, Jinx?”

“It’s Raven! Look! She’s looking right at us!”

Cyborg knelt behind Jinx and looked intently at it. “I just see you and me, girl.”

Jinx looked closely and frowned. Raven frowned back. She seemed to be sitting in the wheelchair, a quizzical Cyborg kneeling behind her. Jinx gingerly tested the reflection by raising her arm to her face, and sure enough, Raven mirrored her exactly.

“Why is my reflection changed to Raven’s somehow?” Jinx asked herself rhetorically.

“It is?!”

As Jinx stared into the mirror, the reflection-Raven suddenly raised her arm again and fondled her ear. Jinx blinked, then realized her hand had risen unconsciously to her own ear, as if to mirror the reflection’s action.

She quickly put the mirror on the dresser, face down, and backed away in her wheelchair. “Okay. You were right. No more mirror. Let’s find literally anything else that can help.”

A frustrating half-hour later, Jinx had given up on finding anything in there. She'd told Cyborg she needed some fresh air.

As he wheeled her out of the front door, she sighed. The smell of the sea washed over her.

"Feeling better?" Cyborg asked.

"I'll feel better when she is."

"You really are serious about her."

"Yeah. I guess I am." Jinx took a deep breath and stretched her arms. "You guys don't seem too worried about her."

"What can we do? We just have to believe in her."

Believe in me, a memory whispered in Jinx's mind.

Jinx took another deep breath, then slowly got up from the chair. She felt a tiny bit stronger, but not by a lot. She slowly walked closer to the shore, looking out towards the city. It looked strangely serene and peaceful from the outside, like something that maybe wasn't so grimy and dirty and full of bad things. Something that might be worth protecting, if you saw it all the time like this.

She sat on a handy rock, resting her hands on it as she took in the unusual amount of construction cranes visible in the skyline. Deserved or not, it certainly needed protection. The many attacks were clearly taking their toll.

As she rested against the rock, she felt a strange but familiar sensation stir deep inside her. Where there had been nothing, there now was something. She sat up and looked at her hands, but the sensation quickly left her, and the trickle of magic with it.

She rested her hand experimentally against the rock again. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was obvious; a trickle of power streamed into her through the hand. But once again, it disappeared as soon as she raised her hand.

She quickly kicked off her boots, ignoring Cyborg's quizzical expression, and let her bare toes play in the sand. Sure enough, she felt it again, even stronger this time. With the sensation came a realization.

"An affinity with earth…" She whispered to herself. On an impulse, she stood up. The magic seemed to be empowering her, reinvigorating her body. She hadn't struggled one bit.

Before Cyborg could even shout in surprise, she did an easy somersault forward, landing in a perfect gymnastics pose. She did another, feeling her strength returning as she did.

"Hey! What happened in the last two minutes, Jinx?"

"Just a little bit of magic," she said, shrugging. There really was always something new to learn.

Jinx quickly ran into some problems with relying on the magic of the earth. For one, she had no idea how to use this magic, or perhaps couldn’t. It gave her energy and strength, but it wasn’t any different from how she usually felt. She reasoned that she had to use it with her chaotic potential for misfortune if she wanted to cast any spells with it. She still said a small prayer of thanks, just in case.

More worrying was that as soon as she had put her boots back on and gone back inside, she felt a constant drain on her magic. It was as if she were a full bathtub with the drain plug pulled. This might explain why her normal magic wasn’t coming back, but she couldn’t figure out why it was happening or how to stop it. There was the worrying possibility that her healing spell had somehow damaged her magic.

It was enough to try something, at least.

“Why didn’t we try this before, anyway?” Cyborg asked, gingerly inserting the obsidian stud in Raven’s ear.

“A lot of magic items need magic from their user to work. Most people have enough normally for minor stuff like this, but I didn’t have any at all, so it wouldn’t have worked.” She used a little hand mirror to check her stud. Looking good wouldn’t hurt if this woke Raven up. Then she took a breath to steady her nerves. “Alright, here we go…”

_Raven, can you hear me?_

Something felt very different about the way this mental message was sent. Normally, there was just the vague sensation that it had been received. This time, it was like she had shouted it into an echoing abyss.

She frowned and tried again, this time with more force. _Raven? Are you there?_

She analyzed the sensation more closely, and sighed.

“What’s wrong? Isn’t it working?”

Jinx looked Cyborg in the eye. “The earrings are working fine. The recipient just… isn’t at home right now.”

“Wh-what does that mean?”

She gingerly removed Raven’s earring and put it in a secure pocket. “Her soul’s somewhere else, and her mind with it. If she were in a regular hospital, she’d be declared to be in a vegetative state. But it’s worse than that.”

“How can it be worse than her soul being gone?!”

“No need to yell,” Jinx winced. “She’s done astral excursions before. Like, she uses her soul all the time in her magic. If she’s not back, it’s because she can’t find her way back. She’s cut off from herself, or stuck. And I have no idea where she might be.”

“Then finding her quickly is a top priority,” Robin said. Jinx and Cyborg jumped.

“When did you-?” Jinx shook her head. It was pointless. “Well, whatever. I think whatever’s wrong with us both, it’s connected to that weather stick. Once we get it back from whoever that guy is, we-”

“There is no ‘we’ here, Jinx.” Something in Robin’s tone, and Cyborg’s guilty reaction to it, set off alarms in Jinx’s head.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we deal with the threat, and you stay here. And when this is over and Raven is back, you face the consequences of your actions.”

Jinx felt a deep swell of anger. She carefully maintained a flat and neutral tone and expression. “Am I a prisoner, Robin?”

“Until we can bring you to justice. We had a vote, and this is how it went.”

“And Raven?”

“She gets to explain herself when she’s awake. Don’t get me wrong. If you two are serious about this, you’ll get to see each other again. Most of us have accepted that. But you’re still a criminal, and you both went behind all our backs for months. That’s trust you have to earn back.”

Jinx kept her breath carefully even. “Cyborg, did you vote for this?”

“Uh, Jinx, I-”

“Did you or did you not.”

“I… I’m sorry, Jinx.”

His lack of answer was enough. “Then get out of my cell and don’t come back.”

“It’s not a cell, Jinx, you can-”

“Can what? Go play in the yard under your supervision? Have my food cooked for me so I don’t cause trouble? Are you sure you don’t want to pat me down for a shiv?”

Cyborg didn’t meet her eyes.

“Get out. Both of you.”

Cyborg quickly left the room, and Robin with him. With her enhanced hearing, she heard Robin’s voice saying something about replacing the lock. She found it hard to care.

She knew exactly when they were too far away to hear her sobbing over Raven’s body.


	9. Dissent

When Beast Boy had arrived to ask if she wanted food, Jinx had glared at him so hard he’d panicked himself into the shape of a monkey and scarpered away. It had been satisfying, but now she was hungry again, whiling away the hours by feeling the constant drain on her magic. By her estimation, she’d be out again completely before nightfall.

She sat in the chair next to Raven, looking at her reproachfully. “Not going to be so bad when we tell them, huh?”

Raven couldn’t answer, of course. Jinx idly wrapped a tendril of the sorceress’ hair around her finger.

“Well, it could have been a lot worse. Maybe it would be better if you were awake. I can only imagine you’re disappointed in your friends, wherever you are.”

Jinx didn’t know why she was so disappointed. Or hurt. It wasn’t like she’d had any expectations or hopes. Right? Couldn’t dash them if you didn’t have any. But part of her knew that was a lie. She had believed, and she’d done so because Raven believed.

“And… at least they’re not opposed to us,” Jinx whispered to herself, snaking her hand into Raven’s. “Even if I don’t know what to think about there being an… us.”

Starfire’s words came to mind. A betrayal said more about the betrayer than about you. It was an oddly comforting thought. As if summoned, there was a knock on the door, and Starfire’s voice came through clearly.

“Jinx? I have brought dinner, and promise that I carry no sponges with me. May I come in?”

Jinx briefly entertained the notion of giving her the silent treatment too, but she had knocked and asked permission. Beast Boy hadn’t. “Come in,” she said, not moving from where she sat.

The new electronic lock chirped as the door opened, making Jinx narrow her eyes. She had taken it for granted so long that she could simply cast a hex on any electronics she wanted, and now she was being defeated by what looked like an off-the-shelf card reader.

Starfire floated gently towards Jinx, looking regretfully at the intertwined hands. “I am sorry about how you have been treated, Jinx. May I sit with you as you eat? I do not wish to make you uncomfortable again.”

Jinx couldn’t help but take pity on the poor girl, even as angry as she was. “Alright, alright, just give me the tray and stay.”

Starfire gave Jinx the tray of food and sat down, forlorn, at the foot of the bed, staring at her hands. Jinx uncovered the food and sighed. “Cyborg again, huh?”

“Yes,” Starfire concurred. “Although it is very unusual to see him make a vegetarian dish unprompted.”

It was Chole. Chickpeas in curry. Again, just a basic, simple thing she’d taught him. “I hope this isn’t his way of saying he’s sorry, because he needs to do that to my face. If I ever let him get that close again.”

Starfire nodded. “Understandable. There was one thing he said I do not understand. He said this would taste of home?”

Jinx shrugged and dug in. She wasn’t about to waste food on a grievance. “It’s Indian cuisine. It’s the country I was born in, the state of Uttar Pradesh to be exact. I keep the ties mostly out of stubbornness.”

Starfire looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been in America way longer than I was there. Ah, dangit, why does this have to be good. The jerk doesn’t even like cooking vegetarian food!”

Starfire cocked her head thoughtfully. “I think I understand. I often miss the food of Tamaran. And yet, the taste of pizza and mustard has come to mean the taste of home, as well.”

“Heck yeah. Pizza is like, the universal food. Goes with anything and anything goes.” She scooped more of the chole in her mouth, disliking how much she appreciated it. “Liking a pie is how you’re supposed to know you’ve become American. Might as well make it pizza pie.”

Starfire smiled and hugged her knees to herself. “It is… a welcoming thought, to be brought together so. I only wish the other Titans had such open hearts.”

Jinx frowned. “What do you mean, the other Titans?”

“We had a vote for how much we should trust you. I cast the one dissenting vote for keeping you prisoner. How we have treated you is neither fair nor just.”

Jinx sighed as she finished the food. She shouldn’t have cared, but this really did make her feel better. “Thank you.”

Starfire smiled and stood up, moving as if to take the tray. She gently nudged the bowl, and Jinx blinked in surprise. From beneath it peeked a security card - the exact kind used on the electronic lock.

“I still dissent,” Starfire whispered with a wink.

Jinx wasted no time in swiping the card and hiding it in her sleeve with one swift movement. “Starfire, they’ll figure you out,” she whispered.

“So they shall. But what would I be, if I did not do as I feel is right? I certainly would not be a Titan.”

Jinx didn’t know how to respond, and she didn’t have to. Starfire walked to the door, opened the lock, and slipped out. “Good luck!” she said before it closed.

“Hey, Raven? Can we ask her out too? I like her.”

She smiled despite herself at the lack of response. “Yeah, that’s a conversation for later, isn’t it?”

Jinx estimated a time close to nightfall. She didn’t know if her body would suddenly become weak again if her magic were completely out, and she didn’t want to chance it. The card reader chirped louder than she’d have liked, but once she was out, she was in her element.

She danced, skipped and jumped past cameras, working her way down to the garage. She reasoned that since the Titans had a car, there had to be some kind of tunnel entrance to the island she could use.

She finally found it and went inside. She’d probably have to hotwire a motorcycle or something to speed past whatever defenses they had, but she’d done that plenty of times. She flicked the lightswitch.

Leaning against the blue T-car, as if waiting for her, was a determined-looking Cyborg.

“Shit,” Jinx said, her tactical mindset on instant alert. “Gonna take me back in?”

“You can’t leave without this,” Cyborg said, holding up a blue-circuited pad. He tossed it to her, and she deftly caught it.

“...What?”

“It’s everything we have on Raven’s attacker. Oh, and you’ll want this.” He tossed her another object, which she also caught. It was a Titan communicator. “The security in the tunnel will see this and think you’re a friend. I disabled the locator and you can’t make calls with it. It’ll only go on if you hit the emergency alarm. When you do, we’ll come running. At the very least, I will.”

Jinx looked at him suspiciously. “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

“The right thing.”

“Really.” She laid on her iciest tone of disbelief.

He stood up straight, looking directly at her. “I don’t always do the right thing the first time, but when I do wrong? Yeah, I try to make it right. And you and me are past due for me to do the right thing. I’m changing my vote.”

“Yeah?” She narrowed her eyes. “And you think this one thing will make things okay?”

“I think it’s a start.” He extended his hand. “And after everything we tried today, something tells me Raven needs you out there more than we need you in here. It’s just this… feeling I have.”

Jinx frowned, then slowly relented and took the hand. “So long as you keep her safe and healthy.”

“The pad also has a live feed of her readouts. You can turn them on anytime to check on her.”

“...Okay. Thank you.” She started walking down the tunnel, then hesitated. “What gave me away?”

“Starfire isn’t as good as you at hiding keycards.”

She smiled. “See ya later, Cy. You’re not completely forgiven yet.”

As soon as the sun had set, shortly after she’d exited the tunnel, she started feeling the drain in a more physical way. Her muscles felt heavy and her feet dragged.

Holding her boots under one hand all the way home to the HIVE base felt strange. Stranger still was how her feet didn’t hurt at all; she never seemed to step on any pebbles or rough spots that would hurt them. They barely even got dirty. It was still embarrassing to be attracting even more looks than usual. Barefoot and hair down, she probably looked like some weird hippie.

She carefully entered the base through a secret entrance. Things looked similar enough to when she’d left. She still crept, by force of habit, towards her room. It had been days since anyone had been in there, and who knew what might have happened with no one to guard the place.

“There you are, you sock-munching traitor!”

Jinx jumped slightly, then turned around. Sure enough, there was Gizmo, his backpack unfolded into combat mode. Slightly behind and to the side of him was Mammoth. She gave them a nice, fake smile. “Why, hello there. Did you spring yourself out?”

“No thanks to you and your new girlfriend.” The tone of his voice matched the sneer on his face.

Jinx’s eyes flicked to Mammoth. Mammoth’s expression gave nothing away. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I’m not having it tonight.”

“Or any night,” Gizmo retorted. “I got out as soon as I heard! The story is all over Jump City! And you’re not even denying it!”

Jinx’s mind wasn’t giving her a lot of tactical options. She dropped her boots and stared the younger boy straight in the eye. “Fine. I’m dating Raven. Now you heard it from me too.”

“Holy crud! You hear that, Mammoth? You didn’t believe it, but here it is!”

“There it is,” the big boy rumbled, nodding.

Jinx didn’t give anything away with her expression. Mammoth had already known, but had tried to cover for her. Why? “Cool. So I’ll pack up my essentials, get out, and you two can find another hideout on your own time. We’re through.”

Just like that, a chapter of her life was over. It was shockingly easy.

“Nah, we ain’t done here, crud-muncher! There’s a bounty on your head!”

Jinx rolled her eyes. “There’s always a bounty on all our heads. You think I’m gonna have it bad? Try what happens when you turn one of us in to the cops, rat or not.”

“It’s not the cops,” rumbled Mammoth. “You’re worth a lot of money, Boss.”

“She ain’t our boss, Mammoth!” Gizmo smiled a devilish smile. “You think four figures is enough to catch our interest? Nah. Try seven. Some mystery player wants you off the board, Jinx. And he wants you alive.”

“...Really.” She frowned. “And you think you can give him what he wants?”

“Yeah we can!”

Jinx smiled and stared straight into Gizmo’s eyes. “Well, you couldn’t pick a better time. I can’t call anyone to help me. I don’t even have my magic right now. You can just come at me and take me down, right?”

“Yeah!” Gizmo said, but he didn’t move to attack. Jinx noted the hesitation in his step.

She smiled wide, not taking her gaze off of Gizmo’s for even a moment. “You’re carrying thirty-eight miniature tactical laser-guided missiles in that backpack, directed by a hidden laser pointer in your goggles. You have nineteen different attack patterns to use them with, depending on the situation, such as who your ally is and who you’re facing. None of those plans include me, someone who knows every single one of them. Because I was the one who made them.”

Gizmo gulped. One of his robotic legs backed up a step.

“I am going to my room,” Jinx continued. “I am going to grab my essentials. I am going to leave, and not come back. And then I’m going to give you two a head start on finding a new base. And that’s all that’s going to happen here tonight.”

Gizmo backed up another step. “H-hey, Mammoth, back me up here!”

“Na,” the big boy said, shaking his head. “She scares me even when she’s not like this.”

A sudden bang made the boys jump. A lightbulb in the ceiling had shattered. Somehow, the room seemed much darker than the loss of one bulb should have indicated. Jinx hadn’t been surprised at all, as if a part of her had expected it would happen, and she didn’t know how or why.

Gizmo made a frustrated noise and retracted the robotic limbs, backing away towards his workshop. “Fine! Whatever! Next time I see you, you’re paying for whatever you did with my monobike!”

Mammoth and Jinx watched him go. Then Jinx fixed her gaze on Mammoth. “And you?” She asked.

“Not much. I didn’t tell, before you ask.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno, you seemed… happy in the pictures I found. Never seen you like that.”

Jinx didn't know how to respond to that for a few moments. "Why do you care if I'm happy?"

"Didn't know I did until I saw it." Mammoth shrugged. "You've always done right by us, boss. I appreciate that."

Jinx held his gaze for a few moments, then turned towards her room. "Thanks," she mumbled awkwardly.

"You too," Mammoth said, ambling out of the room towards his own quarters.

Jinx smiled to herself as she entered her room. If even Mammoth was kinder than she’d expected, maybe there really was something to what Raven believed.

Jinx looked over the stuff in her room with a critical eye. She might be able to come back for some of it later, if she wanted to brave the traps Gizmo was sure to put down before leaving. If he didn't simply burn the place. Now was not the time to think that far ahead.

One of her clever thief's backpacks would have to do. She filled it with spell jars, her athame, a couple of the more important books (especially Raven’s book), chalk and other occult bits and bobs. Her woefully thin stash of joints went into a pocket. Some loose cash, electric chargers, a change of underwear, extra socks, a smelly old sleeping bag, a toothbrush and a towel completed the kit.

This was now her entire life's worth.

She grabbed her boots, made her way back up into the street, took a deep breath of the night air, and sighed.

“Well,” she said quietly to herself. “Let’s add ‘homeless’ to the list of my troubles.”

She knew better, from experience, than to say that things couldn’t possibly get worse from here. Even without her magic, she wasn’t chancing that kind of jinxing.

Minutes later, it began to rain. She had forgotten to pack an umbrella.

The little clearing she and Raven had gotten high in was the perfect hiding spot for rough sleeping. Jinx drew on her H.A.Y.E.P survival training to create a shelter, using the stone table as a makeshift roof around which she arrayed her woven frames of branches and leaves to keep the water out. It was well past midnight when she was finally able to crawl inside to dry herself off. She’d have to steal or buy a heater later. The one consolation was that she could be in direct contact with the ground throughout the night this way.

Once she had laid out her clothes and sleeping bag, she finally pulled out Cyborg’s pad. She turned it on and hit a password protection.

“Oh come on, Cy, you’re better than forgetting to give me a password,” she said. She tried a few terms they both would know about, but nothing worked. She put the pad to the side and buried her face in her hands in frustration. Now she was having bad luck without even magic powers to make up for it.

She tried to put it out of her mind and took out a notebook from her backpack. It was full of random-seeming scribbles, but each sigil in it was carefully crafted by her, symbols of chaos magic - not including the cute unicorns she’d drawn. She tried to enter a meditative state and focus on the sigils, but none of them responded magically to her. She flipped pages and tried each one in turn, despairing with each lack of response.

Then she suddenly came to the newest pages in the notebook. They contained sigils from the Azarath language. Something deep within her responded, however faintly, to them.

“Well, at least this makes sense,” she said out loud. “I learned this in spite of my magic, not from it.” But frustratingly, she couldn’t quite summon the power to begin the healing spell. Still, it was more than nothing. She thought she might be able to if she started the learning process from the beginning.

“That’s just how it is with chaos magic, isn’t it? Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” The phrase came automatically to her mind; in her practice, belief was merely a tool. If something in her magic didn’t work anymore, she should discard it and find something new to believe in. The problem was that she didn’t have the time to construct an entirely new practice for herself. She had a wizard’s ass to kick, and the sooner the better. She put the book away, more frustrated than ever.

She smoothed out her soaked dress and felt the little bump in the hidden pocket where she’d stored Raven’s stud. She took it out and held it gently in her hand.

“I really, really wish you were here right now,” Jinx said to it. “You’re the warmest person I’ve ever known. Like, personality and literally, really, but you know which one I need right now. Actually, both sound good, thinking about it.”

She softly kissed the stone and clutched it in her hand. “We could also talk about… all that stuff. We’ve been avoiding talking about so much. I think I’m more ready to talk about some of it. Your friends don’t want me around, but that’s fine. I’m not giving up on you because of them. And I know you won’t give up on me, wherever you are. I understand that now.”

She clutched her hands close to her chest and forced her body and mind to relax. As she did, she felt a sudden urge to rub her ear. Her hand did so, almost unconsciously. There was something oddly familiar and insistent about it.

Suddenly, she remembered the mirror from Raven’s room. The Raven in the mirror had raised her hand and touched her ear. The ear that didn’t have a stud in it.

Jinx slowly sat up and looked at the stud in her other hand. Both her ears were pierced, but right now she only wore one earring. There was no harm in trying, right? At worst, nothing would happen. She carefully opened and inserted the earring into her ear, locking it in place.

Nothing happened. Of course nothing did. What had she been expecting? But then, on another sudden impulse, she tried sending a message.

_Hello?_

To her surprise, she felt it being received. Then, as if from across an immense distance, she received a reply.

 _Took you long enough._ The sardonic tone left no doubt as to who this was.

“Raven?!”


	10. Million Dollar Girl

_Hello again, Jinx._ Raven’s words were accompanied with the familiar warm fondness Jinx had missed so much.

“Raven, what- how- where are you?”

_You put the earring in your own ear. That’s a clue._

Jinx’s breath quickened. “You’re in my head?”

_More accurately, in your soul. Don’t worry, I can’t read your thoughts. But it was… nice, to hear you talk._

Jinx barely held back her uncharacteristic fourth tears of the week. The relief she felt was immense. “I’m just glad I can talk with you. What’s my soul like?”

_I’m not sure you want me to answer that question. It seems when we combined our magic, I may have given you too much of myself, or made the link too strong._

“Don’t blame yourself,” Jinx said. “I kind of forced your hand.” The comment Raven made about ‘making’ the link worried her, but she was too relieved to care.

_Well, there’s also the nature of my magic to consider._

Jinx winced at the guilt in Raven’s words. “I’ve had some time to put clues together, yeah. Easy to bind, lots of fire... I’m going to guess… demon blood. Right?”

 _...Correct,_ Raven sent, her emoted surprise and resignation evident.

“How much? Great grandparent? Grandparent? It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, of course,” she amended quickly. “It’s kind of a big topic.”

 _It’s alright,_ Raven sent. Jinx could practically feel the emoted shrug. _You said you were more ready to discuss these things, and I’ve decided that I am too. I am half demon._

“Oh. Cool!”

_...Excuse me?_

“You’re a cambion. Like Merlin! That’s sweet as hell, pun intended!”

_You are such a strange girl, Jinx._

“You’re the one who gave me your phone number. So I’m guessing there’s some demonic soul shit going down?”

_...Not how I would have put it. But yes, being part demon, mortal souls have complications for me. When you asked me what your soul was like, my only available answer is… how it tastes._

“Uh.” Jinx shivered. “That doesn’t sound good.”

 _Your soul will easily recover,_ Raven hastily explained. _The problem is that it’s the only thing that is currently sustaining my existence. My soul is considerably… larger, so to speak, than an average human one. Without access to my own magic, my demonic half is forced to resort to draining yours._

“Oh. Okay, well, that explains a few things. Just how hungry are you that you need all of it?”

_Let’s just say that my soul is roughly eight times as needy as most people’s. What is more worrying is that I have no idea how to go back, or how to stop. I’ve only ever… drained, one soul before. And that time, I didn’t want to stop. I just have no idea how to._

Jinx felt goosebumps rise up and down her arms. “Uh. Wow. You killed someone?”

_My… gene donor. The demon half._

“Holy shit, babe. In the space of five minutes you’ve gone from dark to downright hardcore.”

 _I’ll tell you that story some other time._ Jinx could sense the complicated cocktail of guilt, satisfaction and sadness the memory clearly brought out in Raven.

“Fine by me,” Jinx said, hugging her knees to herself happily. Just having Raven be able to talk with her was helping her mood immensely. “So what does my soul taste like?”

_Love._

The simple answer stunned Jinx momentarily. “I… guess that’s good?”

 _Not as good as your chicken curry recipe,_ Raven deadpanned.

Jinx couldn’t help herself and collapsed into a giggling fit. “You are such a… Ugh! Raven! How dare you!”

Raven’s only reply was a kind of strangely smug fondness. Jinx slowly recovered from her laughing fit and grinned.

“So, what do we do about this?”

_I might know the password to the pad, for one. That weather stick might have something to do with our problem, so stopping our attacker seems to be a high priority._

Jinx pulled up the pad again, She turned the screen on, but the symbol of a low battery flashed for a brief second before the screen turned off completely.

“Okay, not a big deal. I can fix this tomorrow.” Jinx snuggled herself into the sleeping bag, leaving one hand resting on the grass. It was wet out, but not too cold. “Now that I’ve got you to help, we can do anything.”

_You really place that much faith in me? Even when we’re like this?_

“Only as much as you did in me.”

Their mutual fondness built on itself, lulling Jinx quickly to a nice, restful sleep.

_...Getting a gym membership was your top priority?_

“It’s very useful when you’re homeless. You can charge your electronics relatively safely, no one cares if you hang out there so cops won’t bother you about loitering or being wanted for robbing a bank, and you get access to a shower. What’s not to like?”

_...That actually is reasonable when you put it like that._

“This ain’t my first rough sleep rodeo, babe.” Jinx got off the treadmill she was running on and did some stretches. Now that she knew that the earth magic was in her, she could feel how it was enhancing her physical abilities. And if she could feel it, she could maybe learn to use it.

_Is your experience the reason why you helped Kate?_

“I guess, yeah. Her and a few others. She’s just the first I’ve met again.”

_I thought you might have. It’s what made me think I could trust you._

“Dork.”

_How about a disguise?_

“My hair doesn’t take dye and they don’t make contacts for people with four eyelids. The best I can manage is dressup, but that won’t work if people are actively looking for me, so…”

 _...Right,_ Raven sent dubiously. _I suppose you would know._

Jinx ignored Raven’s doubt and walked over to the now fully charged pad, turning it on. “What password should I try first?”

_Try ‘when there’s trouble you know who to call’ but without spaces and every word is capitalized._

Jinx punched that in, and the pad opened. “Hey, first try! What’s that from?”

 _Don’t ask,_ Raven messaged dryly. _Cyborg loves his jokes._

There was only one folder visible. Jinx opened it and scanned it quickly, opening a file that seemed relevant.

“Are you kidding me?” She asked incredulously.

_Seriously? Him?_

Jinx studied the picture, but there was no doubt. It was notorious biker, metal enthusiast and robot monster maker Johnny Rancid.

“He has magic? For real?”

 _Sort of, yeah,_ Raven interjected. _He always had some occult stuff going on with those rays he fired, but he also… well, long story short, he jumped into a whirlpool of dimensional forces once and got magical powers for a while. I just thought he had lost them._

“If only losing magic were that easy, right?” Jinx muttered. She felt Raven’s grudging agreement. “So, having tasted power, he sought out more of it. So he attended an auction of magical items. Makes an awful lot of sense.”

The files weren't too detailed, but there was a particular section about Rancid's magical history. "Robin observes that he's probably not in his previous superpowered state, just that he has that staff. That should make things simpler."

_Don't underestimate him. He's the only person in Jump City who ever left Robin with a broken arm. He can handle himself on a bike and in a fight._

"Too bad it wasn't someone as scrawny as Mumbo Jumbo." Jinx stretched her back. "Well, time for that shower. You can still see when I remove the earrings, right?"

_...Yes._

"Guess you get another show. Too bad it isn't Starfire sponge bathing me again. All of my supple, lithe, sexy-"

 _Just go shower!_ If ever there was a way to emote a tomato-red blush, Jinx was tasting it from Raven now.

"If we ask her out you can maybe see that happen again, you know." Jinx removed the earrings with a grin before Raven could answer, letting her stew on that comment before walking to the showers.

"Problem two; gather information on the target. That's going to be very hard now that everyone knows about my cool girlfriend."

_Sorry._

"I'm not." Jinx's feet drew magic up through the pavement as she walked aimlessly. She was slowly learning what surfaces worked and which ones didn't; dirt and sand were best, floor tile the worst, and rooms with basements or above ground level gave no magic at all. "I'm just also not sure how to proceed. It'll come to us eventually."

"Enlightenment does come to us all in the end," said an unfamiliar voice. Jinx looked up.

_Oh. It's Doctor Light. Swell._

Doctor Light, in full costume, raised a hand towards Jinx. "Little girl, you are worth quite the sum. But more than that, you associate with… her. And she and I have unsettled grievances."

Jinx looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"The time for talk is done!" He proclaimed loudly, firing what looked like a beam of light at Jinx. She easily flipped aside to dodge it, idly noting how the energy gouged the pavement.

 _I lost control fighting him once and… well, he saw things most mortals shouldn't._ Raven's emoted shame cut deep. _He has a grudge, apparently._

Jinx flipped and jumped away from the energy beams as citizens fled the scene, carefully ensuring that bystanders wouldn't be hit. "Did my girl spook you that badly, spotlight?"

"That's Doctor Light!" He answered indignantly, his next beam cutting a car apart.

"Sure thing, bright eyes. Who's holding your leash?"

"Wha- Doctor Light works freelance, missy! I am an independent contractor!"

"If you say so, lampshade." Doctor Light's next attack was so badly aimed she barely had to dodge. He fumed at her.

_Is this really the plan? Can't the interrogation wait until after you've taken him down?_

"Nah, this is fine. So who wants me so badly that you'd risk seeing Raven again, dimbulb?"

"Cease your prattling, witch! Kids these days have no respect. You will find out soon enough."

Jinx jumped clear over his next attack, her bare foot impacting square on his face. She used it as leverage to flip herself back, causing him to fall hard on his butt.

"Not at this rate. You really are a lightweight, aren't you?"

 _I swear your insults are worse than his puns,_ Raven messaged exasperatedly. _I can't believe he's so thin skinned._

"This always worked on you plenty," Jinx whispered.

_Did not._

Doctor Light recovered his composure, rubbing his backside indignantly. "Very well! If you will not come quietly, perhaps incentive will help you see the Light! I know where your team's hideout is!"

"I quit the team already."

"Er… Oh. Well, how about that rumour that you've been seen with a young pair of innocent girls?"

Jinx stopped in her tracks and stared into Light's eyes. A sudden intense fury simmered inside her. "False."

_Wait. Jinx. Something is wrong. Calm down._

"Oh I don't think it is," he said. "And I will find them soon enough if you do not cooperate."

All of a sudden, it was as if the street itself had gone dark. "I don't know what you think you know," Jinx said menacingly. "But don't hurt random girls to get at me."

"Oh, I see. You've become a hero. In that case, any hostage will do!"

_Jinx! Wait!_

The darkening street suddenly crawled with strange, eerie shadows. Jinx saw Light's expression go from triumph to shock to terror. He turned as if to run away.

Jinx wouldn't let him. She silently commanded the shadows to capture him. From behind her, a long, dark-red tendril extended, wrapping itself around his leg, tripping him up and dragging him towards her.

"You will harm no one, Light. You will not threaten me or anyone else ever again." Jinx's voice echoed with a strange foreign power.

"Please! Mercy!" His words were cut off as he was lifted into the air by the dark tendril, face to face with Jinx.

"It's too bad Raven isn't here. I don't play as nice as her."

As Light cowered and whimpered, her own words snapped her back to reality- and to what was happening. Of course Raven was there. What was she saying? What was this power?

Why was Raven suddenly not talking to her?

She hastily dropped Light, realizing as she did that she was floating in the air. Light fell heavily to the ground, curling up into a ball.

"It was Rancid!" He screamed. "I have no idea where he is hiding! Please! PLEASE!"

"Get out of here," Jinx said, lowering herself to the ground. As Light retreated as fast as he could, she caught a glimpse of herself in a storefront window.

Her normally pink eyes were a deep crimson red. The slit pupils narrowed as she took herself in. Her pink hair had become crimson red as well, trailing off into shadows many times its original length, and she realized it had been the tendrils she had been commanding.

She took a step backwards in shock, and just like that, the red tint slowly leached itself away, leaving her pink again, and her hair as limp as before. She thought it might have grown by as much as a foot in length.

"Raven?" She whispered.

 _Jinx,_ came a weary answer. _I'm so sorry. I tried…_

"Was that… your magic?"

_Part of it. The part I most try to keep under control. My Anger._

Jinx walked hastily away from the scene, her heart beating like a drum in her chest. "Did it… respond to me getting angry?"

_Yes. She did._

"...She." Jinx's breath caught in her throat. "I've seen her, haven't I. In that magic circle you made."

_You remember how difficult it was for me to maintain control? That was when I was at full strength and in my own body. I am far from that now. Even less so, after this._

"Less? What do you mean?"

_I think you used my magic. The stuff I've been leeching to stay alive. I feel as weak as when you first woke up in the Tower._

"I… Wait. What would have happened if I'd used all of it?"

_Without magic, my soul ceases to be. I will not go to an afterlife. I will simply… die._

“...Holy shit,” Jinx whispered. “I… what can we do?”

_We can get through this together. It’s not your fault, Jinx. We couldn’t have known that your emotions would conjure mine._

“Raven, I don’t know if you noticed, but I kind of have a short temper!” Jinx felt the beginnings of panic building in her.

 _Breathe, Jinx. It’s okay._ The sensation transmitted from Raven could only be described as a hug around Jinx’s soul. Jinx breathed, and allowed the sensation to comfort her.

It took a minute or two for Jinx to calm down. “I guess I better learn some anger management quickly,” she said wryly.

_I can help with that, at least. My meditation techniques are almost entirely about control._

“That sounds like-” Jinx’s sentence was cut off by a new voice.

“Aha! You’re Jinx and you’re worth a million dollars! That’ll complete my rare original series VHS collection nicely!”

Jinx looked at the source of the voice. It was the young man known as Control Freak. “Oh come on. This guy? He’s embarrassing.”

"Yeah he is!" Came a voice from behind her.

She turned around. "See-More? Seriously? You think you can take me?"

"A little sweary green bird told me you didn't have your magic, Jinx. I think I can risk it!" The one-eyed teen adjusted a dial on his helmet menacingly.

 _I guess Gizmo sold some information,_ Raven interjected.

"Back off, Cyclops!" Control Freak raised his remote threateningly at See-More. "She's mine!"

"In your dreams, nerd!"

Jinx watched the two begin to argue and slowly backed off. "How about I just… go."

_I promise I won’t make fun of you for running away from Control Freak. This is getting out of hand and we can't keep this up._

"Agreed!" Jinx wasted no time in turning around and running away at full speed as chaos erupted behind her.

Some time later, Jinx crawled wearily back into her little hidden shelter, collapsing onto her sleeping bag in her freshly stolen hoodie. "Just how many villains does this city have anyway?"

_I stopped counting a while ago._

"At least the hoodie worked a little. All this over a measly million? I've stolen more than that in a single heist."

_And not managed to keep it._

"That's beside the point, thank you very much. I honestly wonder if Rancid even intends to deliver. He's not the most stable guy to do business with."

 _Have you done so before?_ Raven seemed surprised.

"Once. Acted as an intermediary between him and Slade to deliver info on you guys. I'll be happy never doing business with either one again."

_...I legitimately don't know how to feel about that. At least you won't have to worry about Slade again. He died._

"Good. Can't believe I used to look up to that guy."

_...I am... even less sure how to feel about that._

"My school was making us all into good little soldiers and he was the best one of all. Hell, I'm pretty sure he secretly funded it. He always wanted an apprentice to pass on... whatever it was he was about, but never found one with us. We became kind of an abandoned loose end until… well."

_Until Brother Blood._

"...Right." Jinx curled her toes on the grass, letting the magic sensation soothe her. "That was the first time I started realizing we were being sold bullshit. Not that we had a choice. You remember how I hate telepaths?"

_I thought it might have something to do with him. I'm so sorry._

"It's fine. Mostly. You guys did stop him. But… part of why I was so susceptible to him was that I'd been trained to follow orders and not care about other things. We really were perfect little toy soldiers. Useful, pliant… disposable."

Raven simply sent a comforting wave of affection her way.

"There's a lot I haven't unpacked but… that can come later. Point is, I kept looking up to villains as if that would make me less disposable to them and it kept not working out for me. So I decided, be like Madame Rouge. Don't believe in anyone but yourself. And then you happened."

_No one ever believed in you back._

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's true. Thanks for that." Jinx was grateful, but also on edge, awaiting Raven's next response. Something still didn't sit right about this situation they were in.

_Who's Madame Rouge?_

"Long story," Jinx sighed. Then she suddenly went completely still. _One of my twig traps just snapped,_ she messaged to Raven. _Someone's outside._

_Did someone follow us?_

_Not staying in here to find out._ Jinx crawled to the entrance of the shelter, then quickly rolled out of it to a standing position, carefully looking around.

She saw no one. That really only meant one thing.

"Very nice," She said out loud. "You can stay hidden but set off my trap because you wanted to send me a message. I get it. Step out here so we can chat."

"Fine by me," came a slightly electronically distorted voice. From behind a tree stepped a black clad young man in a skull mask, slashed with two red lines.

"Red X, huh?" Jinx frowned. Of anyone in the city, this guy remained the biggest mystery to her and everyone else who cared. "Here for your easy million dollars?"

"Gotta look out for number one," he answered, shrugging.

 _He can't be trusted,_ Raven opined distastefully.

 _Actually… he can be trusted to do one thing._ Jinx narrowed her eyes. "And if I don't want to come?"

"Doesn't make a difference to me how you come with me so long as you do."

"...Really." Jinx felt a grin coming on. The beginnings of a plan were forming in her brain.

_...What are you up to this time, Jinx?_

_He always looks out for number one. And no one else. He's exactly what I used to think I was. And I know how to use that._

"...Fine by me," she said out loud. "Then let's make it interesting."

Red X cocked his head curiously.


	11. Rock and Roll

Red X sped up his motorcycle as they left Jump City and the terrain slowly transitioned into desert. Riding behind him, side-saddle style was Jinx, tightly bound with his Red X-es around the mouth, wrists and ankles.

 _Are you sure we’re okay?_ Raven’s mood radiated concern.

 _We’re fine,_ Jinx replied silently. Although she wasn’t so sure they were.

Raven didn’t reply, and Jinx lapsed silently into her own thoughts. There was no good way of knowing what was about to happen. For his part, Red X was completely silent. No bragging, no mocking, just that veneer of what Jinx had also once thought of as ‘professionalism.’ The perfect little toy mercenary, doing his job.

It almost made her want to vomit.

He swerved the bike suddenly to a side road, driving them in the direction of what looked like a small rocky mesa. Ancient signs warned visitors to keep out, but Red X drove past the long-destroyed gate with ease.

 _I can sense something dangerous here,_ Raven sent. _There’s some serious magic at work._

Jinx furrowed her eyebrows as they drove closer to the mesa, eventually reaching a spindly, curved road that took them to its top. A large structure was visible in the distance at the top. As they drove closer, Jinx sighed with exasperation. Massive amplifiers and speakers, bound together with iron bands and chains, flanked what was unmistakably a concert stage.

 _Well. It’s certainly on brand,_ Raven commented dryly.

Red X drove up to the side of the stage, then unceremoniously picked Jinx up, carrying her over his shoulder up to the center.

Johnny Rancid emerged from behind a massive amp. He looked completely different from what Jinx remembered; His hair and eyes were red, and the tattoos on his arms seemed to glow crimson even under the harsh sunlight.

 _Looks like Robin’s analysis was wrong,_ Raven remarked. _Who knows how powerful he is now._

Red X dropped Jinx onto her butt harshly, making her wince. “Your bounty as requested,” He said sardonically. “Where’s the payment?”

“You’re late,” Rancid said. “I thought the best merc in Jump wouldn’t need most of a week to find one girl.”

“I’m the one who did find her, aren’t I?” The electronic voice dripped with sarcasm.

Rancid sneered, then walked behind a giant set of drums, rummaging in a pile of tools and wires. He took out a battered suitcase and opened it.

“It’s clean cash,” he said, letting Red X inspect it briefly before closing it and tossing it to the mercenary. “You gonna stick around for the show?”

“Nah. I’ve done my job.” Red X looked briefly at Jinx’s face. “And I’ve gotten all my payment. I’m not sticking around.”

“Your loss.” Rancid watched Red X walk off the stage, back to his bike, and drive off before he acknowledged Jinx’s presence. For the first time, he smiled, a dark and foreboding grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Just in time for the show. You’re gonna be part of it, little girl. You’re gonna draw that girlfriend of yours outta hiding so she can take part, too.”

He reached out and grabbed the X around Jinx’s mouth, ripping it off in one motion. She applied a mental control lesson from Raven, ignoring the pain so she wouldn’t scream.

“Ow,” she simply said. It stung like hell, in a distant kind of way. “This is seriously your plan? Holding a concert on some rock?”

“Rock concert, baby!”

Jinx opened her mouth, then closed it and huffed.

_...You kind of walked into that one._

“But the trick with this one is, I’m gonna rock Jump City with me. I’m gonna rock… the world.”

“Dramatic for a dinky little stage like this,” Jinx said.

“This here isn’t my stage, little girl. The mesa is my stage!” He gestured dramatically.

“Jinx.”

“Uh, What?”

“My name is Jinx.”

“As if that’s gonna matter soon, little girl. Your earth power is gonna help fuel my little spell and get this show on the road!”

“Yeah?” Jinx had a sinking feeling. _Any update on that magic?_

 _It’s suffusing the entire mesa. Whatever he’s planning, it’s big._ Raven’s message emoted nothing; she was clearly clamping down, preparing herself mentally for what was coming. Receiving no emotion at all made goosebumps rise on Jinx’s arms. It was eerie.

“But to really get it started properly,” Rancid continued, “I gotta get some of that earth power outta you.” He went backstage and emerged again, holding the magic staff. He waved it around, and several shackled earth elementals sprung out of the ground around the stage, each one carrying a piece of a shackle sized suspiciously perfectly for Jinx. “Time to get what’s mine!”

Jinx answered by easily ripping the X holding her hands together apart. She stood up easily, repeating the process with the one around her ankles. “Yeah, nah.”

“What?” Rancid grimaced. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I heard your magic was weak.”

“Yeah, it was. A week ago.”

“Give me a few days, X.” Jinx raised her hands, showing she wasn’t planning anything. “Like, five days. I’ll stay right here where you can find me, you make sure no one else gets me. Then I go with you peacefully, you pretend to have hogtied me when you toss me to Rancid, and you get paid for capturing me.”

“Yeah? And what’s in it for me, witch?”

“Something no one else can give you, X. Cyborg’s personal password.”

 _He doesn’t use it for everything,_ Raven warned.

_He uses it in a bunch of things, right? That’ll do. By the time X can use it, we’ll have taken down Rancid and can warn the other Titans anyway._

_And if not, at least the Titans won’t be bored._ Raven’s lack of concern made Jinx grin.

X’s eyes narrowed as he considered the offer. “And how do you have it?”

“Got this pad from the tower, built by Cyborg,” Jinx said. “And I got into it. That should be proof, right?”

In the end, Red X had been unable to resist the lure of tweaking Robin’s nose again. And, true to his nature, he’d given them all the time Jinx had requested. He’d even helped keep her safe as she went about her business in Jump City. Five days hadn’t been a lot, but it had let her build her reserves of magic and prepare herself.

Rancid swung his staff at her. “Catch her!” he commanded, and the elementals moved.

Jinx smiled, then quietly intoned magic words in perfect synch with Raven.

 _Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!_  
“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!”

She twirled around, as if she were releasing her own magic, and from her fingers emerged dark bolts of energy which struck the earth elementals squarely. Each one crumbled easily into piles of dirt. Raven’s spell of disintegration, learned during the past week and combined with her own earth affinity, easily broke whatever it was that protected the elementals from Raven’s magic alone.

Jinx did a little fistpump. There hadn’t been a chance to try it out before now.

“That magic doesn’t look right,” Rancid said. He retrieved a metal shard from his belt and used it to fire a red bolt of power at Jinx.

Jinx encased one hand in black energy, forming a shield, and easily deflected it.

“What the hell did you do, little girl? That’s not your magic, whatever it is.” He fired again and again, backing away from Jinx.

“You’re right, Rancid.” She evaded and deflected the bolts as she advanced towards him. “I just borrowed a little from Raven.”

Jinx ran on the gym’s treadmill. They only had a few days to spare, and she had to be ready.

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Should one belief fail me, I should simply find another. That’s the principle of chaos magic.”

_What does that mean for us, in practical terms?_

“It means I have to find magic I can rely on and believe in. And it just so happens that there is magic like that, right here, that we already know I can access.” She tapped the side of her head with a finger.

_...You’re going to believe in me. That’s… kind of brilliant._

“You’re the one who asked me to, babe.”

By mentally preparing their minds and strengthening the link forged by the earrings, along with a lot of practice, they could act in perfect synch. All Jinx had to do was act as a channel for Raven’s magic. And after five days of charging, they had plenty of it to go around.

Rancid threw away the metal shard in frustration and stepped back further. “You think you got me cornered? This show is just about to start!” He turned to a large black guitar and strummed it hard.

Jinx registered the fact that she was standing in front of one of the giant speakers a hair too late. The blast of sound, deflected only partially by a shield she and Raven erected, blew her clear off the stage and far onto the mesa. She rolled around several times before finally flipping and turning enough to land on her bare feet, coughing from the kicked-up dust.

She looked toward the stage, and at Rancid, now standing squarely in its center. He’d hooked the guitar’s strap around his neck. It was a massive thing, almost built like his motorcycle with strange metal tubing and what looked like a rumbling engine. He strummed it again, and a second sonic blast kicked up more dust. Jinx barely held her ground, gritting her teeth as she held up her protective shield.

“Time to get this show on the road!” Rancid yelled into a microphone. Jinx was almost knocked off her feet as the earth below her moved and shook.

“What the hell is this?” Jinx yelled over the noise.

 _It’s the mesa itself,_ Raven said. _I just felt a surge of power animating it. The fence around it has been turned into a massive shackle._

“You mean he turned the entire thing into an earth elemental?!”

_He’s done more than that. Look at the stage._

Jinx looked past the dust and blowing wind and checked the stage carefully. She quickly spotted what Raven meant. The speakers were bound with iron.

“He’s bound elementals to his amps to boost them? Wow. That’s kinda cool.”

_Focus._

“Right, yeah.” Jinx crossed her arms and took a deep breath.

 _Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!_  
“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!”

Raven’s magic, directed by Jinx, sent her flying into the air. This was another type of magic she hadn’t practiced before then, but it got her out of the path of the speakers. She flew, only a little unsteadily, towards the stage and landed a few feet away from Rancid.

“Hey! No stage invaders!” Rancid turned the guitar towards Jinx. She only barely realized the danger in time, flipping to the side as a giant gout of flame emerged from the metal tubing on it.

“Wow, and fire elementals for pyrotechnics? Dude’s really put thought into this.” Jinx was quietly impressed.

_Who knew he could think._

“You’re the one who said not to underestimate him.” She dodged another gout of flame, then quickly flipped away from a pyrotechnic elemental bound to a flamethrower in the stage’s floor.

“You don’t have to fight me, little girl!” Rancid punctuated his words with more riffs and flames. “I know what you’re like. You’re not some hero. You hate the system as much as I do! I can let you go and you can watch me tear it apart!”

“Yeah, the system is pretty bullshit, isn’t it?” She dodged another burst of flame, then a swing from what looked like a water elemental manning the drums.

“It’s not like the city matters! I’ll tear it down! I’ll tear them all down! Hell, you can join me if you want!”

“What about the people, Rancid?”

“What about them?” He sneered. “Bunch of sheep, all complicit in what’s keeping them down. Why should I care?”

_"You can't rely on people being kind. They really aren't."_

_"...Aren't they? A lot of people think humans are fundamentally selfish. I don't, despite having known their worst impulses and foulest individuals. I trust enough in people to be loyal and kind, even if just to a small group of friends, and the occasional stranger. That kind of loyalty can save the world."_

_"I don't agree. What's your point?"_

_"I suppose... I have my answer."_

Jinx drew herself up, looking Rancid square in the eye.

“Because people care about each other. Even when the system doesn’t. That’s my reason.”

He snorted. “Pretty weak, little girl.”

“It suits me.”

“Then you can go down with them!” Instead of resuming his attack on her, he did a wild riff on his guitar, causing the entire stage to shake.

Jinx looked towards the horizon as the earth below her lurched. The mesa wasn’t just awake. It was moving now. And far in the distance, now getting closer with shocking speed, was the skyline of Jump City.

 _I guess he didn’t need your magic to actually do it,_ Raven remarked.

“I’ll crush the city, and the Titans, and all your friends, and your girlfriend, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

“My friends, huh?” Jinx grinned and raised her arm. In it was a Titan communicator. With a red blinking light.

Rancid’s face fell.

As if on cue, the noise of an incoming jet cut through the noise of the stage. It was unmistakably the Teen Titans, coming to save the day.

“Got you again~!” Jinx said teasingly. She’d activated the emergency alarm as soon as her arms were free, but they had been pretty far out into the desert.

Beast Boy and Starfire flew down from the Titan’s jet, carrying Cyborg and Robin. Cyborg landed heavily next to where Jinx stood and nodded towards her.

“Told you I’d be here,” he said.

“Didn’t doubt it,” Jinx replied, and she meant it. Beast Boy and Starfire both met her eyes and nodded, and she nodded back. It was a strange but welcome feeling.

“You’re going down, Rancid,” Robin said. Jinx was surprised to see him there. The boy wonder hadn’t looked at her once.

“Nah, kids. The show must go on!”

Rancid began a quick riff of his guitar, building towards a quick crescendo as elementals rose from all around them. Dozens of air, earth, water and fire elementals emerged from above, below and to all sides.

Robin unfolded his staff and assumed a combat stance. “Titans! Go!”

Jinx was familiar enough with the tactics the Titans fell naturally into without needing to be told. As good as her own plans were, she genuinely was envious of the cohesion they had as a team. Almost without thinking, and without needing to be prompted, she deduced and took on Raven’s role in the plan; taking down the magical foe while the team kept the minions occupied.

Rancid put the crystal skull to his ear, as if listening to it. He then began a rippling solo, causing the air to reverberate dangerously around them, knocking Beast Boy and Starfire out of the air. He then let go of the guitar which mysteriously continued to play by itself and gripped the magic staff in both hands. “I’m not out of tricks yet!”

Jinx drew on Raven’s power, but the dark bolt of energy dissipated against what seemed like a wall of solid air before it could snatch the staff out of his hands. Then she felt a terrible weight on her, as if her soul was being pulled apart.

“My staff managed to bind part of Raven with its magic, and it just told me her power is in you. Think you can resist my pull, little girl?”

 _I don’t think I can,_ came Raven’s strained message. _I didn’t think the bindings were on me even after the shackles were off!_

Jinx gritted her teeth, feeling her anger rising in her as the Titans struggled around them. “I’m not losing like this! We’re not losing like this! You’re done, Rancid!”

Rancid laughed, and Raven’s panicked and frustrated emotion disappeared from Jinx’s mind. She realized too late what was happening. Five days of cramming had not been enough to learn how to contain Anger.

Rancid’s eyes widened as he witnessed what was no doubt a terrifying transformation as red and shadowy tendrils lifted Jinx’s body into the air without her control. Then he smiled, as wide as he could. “Oh, yeah! Now we’re talking! Bring the fury!”

Jinx could only watch in horror from behind her own eyes as the battle resumed, Raven’s emotion now possessing her, not caring about collateral damage. A red tendril of hair physically ripped out a speaker and nearly flattened Beast Boy as it missed its intended target. Another knocked Cyborg physically off his feet. The Titans watched in horror, and Anger laughed a deep, demonic laugh, answered by the ever more frantic music.

 _I’m so sorry,_ Raven said.

 _Don’t be,_ Jinx replied.

 _You can hear me?_ Raven seemed surprised. _You couldn’t last time._

_She didn’t take control so completely last time. This is trouble. I can feel how much of our stored up magic she’s draining away. We have to stop her._

_I don’t see how-_

_Possess my body, Raven. I know you can. You have the mental training to control her where I can’t._

A brief silence punctuated Jinx’s words.

_How… did you know I can do that?_

_Because you already did it to me once,_ Jinx said, feeling Raven’s sudden intense shame. She had guessed correctly, and her own heart sank. _It’s a thing demons do, right?_

_...Jinx, I-_

_We don’t have time. Just do it._

Raven’s shame disappeared, compartmentalized into her plural mind with ruthless efficiency. _I’m sorry,_ she said, and went to work.

Anger suddenly stopped her attack and held her head in her hands. “No! No, you can’t trap me again! I have her body! I can crush this insect beneath our heel better than you ever can! You cannot stop me!”

Rancid wasted no time in directing an elemental to punch Anger hard, knocking her entirely off the stage, making her skid across the earth. The shadows receded, and the red turned pink once again.

Raven stood up, now fully in control. “...Ow.”

She took stock of the situation and grimaced. The plan was falling apart. Cyborg had taken damage. Beast Boy was kept at bay by raging fires, with no animal form able to withstand them. Starfire rose into the air, only to be knocked down each time. Robin was running out of gadgets. And in the distance, Jump City’s skyline was perilously close. It would be a matter of mere minutes before the concert reached its intended audience.

“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!” She incanted, and black bolts shattered earth elementals apart all around her. “What do we do, Jinx? How do we win?”

 _I just got a really bad idea,_ she replied with that slight tinge of nervous excitement Raven had become all too familiar with whenever Jinx thought up a new plan.

“...Do tell,” she said as Cyborg blasted an elemental off her back.

_Do what you just did, but point down._

“I thought of that,” Raven said. “His staff will be protecting the giant from the unbinding spell.”

_Well, then you better not miss it on the way._

Raven blinked. “You’re right. That is a bad idea.” She took a deep breath. “Robin. I need a shot at Rancid’s staff. I only have one chance at this.”

Robin threw an exploding disc at an elemental’s head, shattering it apart and coming to a rest next to her. “Then we better make it count. It’s good to hear you again, Raven.”

“How did you know?”

He simply grinned at her. “I’ll give you the opening. And tell Jinx I’ll apologize to her in person later.”

_Say what? Apologize? Him? Seriously!?_

“...She knows.”

Robin signalled to the team to gather close. “Titans! Break through!”

As one, the team converged on Robin’s position. Cyborg and Beast Boy hi-fived each other and then led the charge, using sonic blasts to clear a path on one hand, using a Rhino’s momentum on the other. Robin charged into the breach, Starfire following suit, disrupting the enemy line before it could form.

Raven took flight, trailing Jinx’s now ankle-length hair behind her as if it were her cloak, pushing through the hole in the defenses around Rancid, and prepared her unbinding spell.

“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!” She pushed more power into her spell, and it impacted on Rancid’s shield, boring into it, cracking it, but not breaking it.

“Not good enough, Jinx! I-” A red X enveloped Rancid’s head. Raven glanced to where it had come from. Far away from the melee, still on his bike, Red X looked back at her and nodded once before driving away.

 _What the hell, now even he’s got a heart of gold? Isn’t anyone an honest villain in this town anymore?_ Jinx’s sarcasm made Raven smile.

“If he’s like you, he just doesn’t want the city gone,” Raven said. She smiled again at Jinx’s pretend-hurt at the comparison.

_At least Rancid finally said my name._

Raven grinned, and focused.

“Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!” She flew at the barrier and poured more and more magic into her spell, aware of how little they still had, aware of how quickly she was depleting their entire reserve. She could sense Jinx’s worry, and their mutual determination to see this through.

The spell broke through the shield, and-

_What the-_ Jinx glanced around. _Whoah, I can see you, Raven!_

Raven nodded. _We’ve been pulled into some kind of mental communication._ They both stood in what looked like a featureless void. Before either of them could approach the other, a third voice joined them.

_Ah, Jinx and Raven. You two are quite troublesome. Inventive. Clever. Powerful. Everything that this wretched Rancid creature is not._

The girls looked at the source of the voice. It was an older gentleman, wearing a tricorn hat and coattails, looking their way.

 _You would be… the thief of this weather stick, I take it?_ Raven said.

 _Its true maker,_ He replied haughtily. _Without me, it would long since be a rotten husk in some forgotten pagan grave. Without me, and my skull._

 _Creepy,_ Jinx remarked. _So who are you?_

 _Stikk,_ He replied with a small bow. _Jacob Stikk. Sorcerer in life, and in… well, whatever this existence can be called._

_Great. And what the hell do you want?_

_What does any sorcerer want, Jinx? Power. Long life. I have both, but… well, you’ve seen my physical form. Right now, what I have is a proposal for you both._

_Oh, great, here we go,_ Raven said sarcastically under her breath. She whispered to Jinx. _This is the speech where he tries to recruit us to his side. I don’t know why people bother._

 _Like you didn’t bother with me, huh?_ Jinx grinned, and Raven smiled back.

 _You both have immense power,_ Stikk continued, ignoring the two huddling together. _I merely sense your elemental potential as I am now, and yet when combined it exceeds all forces I have sensed in my entire existence. You two could wield my power far more effectively than this creature Rancid ever could. He wants only destruction from me, when I have the potential to reshape the world!_

 _Yeah, nah,_ Jinx said. _Imperialism isn’t my thing._

 _...It doesn’t suit us,_ Raven added.

 _The alternative is that I take your power and grant it to someone who will,_ Stikk warned. _Your magic does not function in my realm, but mine shall!_ He visibly gathered magical energy to himself, as if threatening to release it. _My bonds already bind you to my will!_

Jinx and Raven looked at each other, nodded, and as one ran towards a surprised Stikk. Their movements flowed together, as if they were the same body, and they punched Stikk hard in the midsection.

Jinx’s fist, enveloped in the dark energy of the unbinding spell, punched clean through the middle of the weather stick, breaking it in half. Raven’s spell then released into the stage below, through the floorboards, into the earth, cracking it all over. Dark energy spilled from every crevice and cranny as elementals dispersed and broke apart, raining bonds of iron all around them. Rancid was knocked to the side, struggling to breathe through the red X enveloping his face, his hair rapidly turning black and his body resuming its natural color. The Titans converged on him, subduing him.

Jinx crouched in the remnants of the stage and took a deep breath, clutching one piece of the weather stick in her hand. A huge surge of potential filled her; The little fluctuations of fortune and misfortune around her filled her, flowed into her, as her long hair bobbed and weaved strangely.

She had her magic back, and she felt alive.

Then her mood plummeted. If she had her magic back… They had used up so much energy on that spell…

“Raven? Are you there?”

There was no response.

“Raven? Come on.” _Please say something!_

Only silence met her.

Jinx dug out the pad Cyborg had given her, furiously typing in the password, and hit the app showing Raven’s vital signs.

All the lines were flat. Blood pressure, heartbeat, others she didn’t recognize, simply gone. A long, flat beeping sound underlined an ongoing reading of no life at all, as of a minute earlier.

Jinx felt numb and slowly got up, only to suddenly lose her footing. The giant elemental under their feet was rapidly breaking apart. A chasm opened mere inches away. The stage split apart, bits of it falling into the gaping earth. She moved as quickly as she could in her numb state to avoid falling, but an errant beam of wood hit her, pushing her in. A stray thought entered her mind as she stared into the opening earth below.

Sure was nice to have her magic back.

She fell into the darkness below, tumbling in the air. She’d lost her grip on the pad, its long flat note the only thing she heard as she realized that no one had seen her fall. No one was swooping in to rescue her. It was over.

At least Raven wasn’t leaving by herself.

A sudden intense darkness, deeper than even the darkness of the chasm below, enveloped her. For a moment she’d thought she had closed her eyes, but then she felt a pair of arms on her back and under her knees, catching her softly.

Her breath caught in her throat as Raven’s blue cloak enveloped her and those large expressive eyes looked into her own.

“...We have got to stop meeting like this,” Raven said.

Jinx threw her arms around Raven’s neck, hugging her tightly. Raven grunted, but bore it as she flew upwards, back into the light, out of the chasm. Jinx watched as the giant elemental below them crumbled gently, forming a huge pile of rubble mere miles away from Jump City. They gently set down atop what remained of the plateau, Raven letting Jinx stand on her own feet.

As they landed, Jinx’s mind started taking in details again. Under Raven’s cloak was a white hospital gown, and trailing from underneath it were ripped, slashed and even burned wires from medical sensors. She was thin, and tired.

“I… didn’t have a lot of time,” Raven said by way of explanation, drawing her cloak around herself in embarrassment. “I had to come here quickly, just in case.”

Jinx smiled sadly. “You know me too well.”

The other Titans crowded around, enveloping them both, shouting and smiling about their friend having returned, but Jinx felt distant from all of it, barely hearing it. The events leading them here were hitting her.

Far above them, ominous rain clouds gathered where previously there had been clear skies. It fit Jinx’s mood perfectly.

She walked a short distance away from the group as soon as she could, idly thumbing the half of the broken weather stick she was still holding. Raven waved the others off, apparently asking for privacy, and walked to her.

“Jinx, I…”

“You had a week to tell me, Raven.”

Raven looked away. “I thought… it was best to wait until after the crisis.”

“Yeah? Just like your plan for me with the Titans? Even after you saw how that worked out?”

Raven flinched. “How did you realize?”

“What else could it have been, Raven? That night at the docks when Rancid attacked you, me healing you from those awful burns, barely knowing how the spell worked, and all of a sudden I’m casting it perfectly with more power than I’ve ever had? It’s obvious when you think about it. It was you casting it through me. You pulled a Brother Blood on me.”

Raven flinched again. “I am sorry. I really am. I didn't know what else to do."

“I know. You said you were sorry. I even get it,” Jinx said, taking a deep breath. “It was… the right call. I was just hurting myself before you entered my mind. And then whatever binding magic that was still on you from those shackles trapped you inside me while the stick still had power. You couldn’t have known that.”

Raven didn’t move.

“But that’s not what hurts me so much right now. You had a week to tell me. A whole week. I would have forgiven you for possessing me, I know that now. But that really hurts, Raven. You trust me enough to let me save your life, but not enough to tell me what you’ve done to me? What happened to you not knowing better than me?”

Raven clutched her cloak more tightly around herself.

“Or is that just how you treat everyone you care about?” Jinx said angrily.

“I... “ Raven couldn’t meet her eyes at all. “I don’t…" Jinx's words had struck home.

“I need some space,” Jinx said, walking towards the city. “I need to think. Cool off.”

“...Jinx, please, I-” Raven touched Jinx’s arm. Jinx shrugged it off and kept walking. “Please!”

“I can’t deal with this right now!” Jinx yelled, drawing the attention of the other Titans. “Let me go!”

“Jinx!”

“Get LOST!” Jinx’s words conjured up a frightening blast of pink energy that impacted on Raven’s chest. Unusually, she barely felt it. It washed over everyone present.

“Jinx? What did you do?” Raven looked back at where Jinx had been.

She was gone. Completely. As if she had never been there.

“Jinx? Talk with me. Jinx! I'm sorry!"

Raven realized what she had been hit with. She’d been told about it once before. It was Jinx’s Get Lost Hex. The one she’d made for her ex. The one that would make it impossible for Raven to find her.

"Please…" she whispered feebly.

Starfire came up to her and silently hugged her, and as the other Titans picked up the pieces from the battle, as raindrops began to fall around them, Raven cried into her friend’s shoulder.


	12. Healing

Snow crunched under Raven’s boots as she made her way to the little forest shelter Jinx had made. Her power made tendrils of shadow spread out behind her, gently covering and hiding her tracks. Couldn’t be too careful. Didn’t want a villain or Titan to find her.

She took in the clouds above and sighed. Endless grey skies and snowfall, unseasonably at the tail end of summer. She drew her cloak close over her stolen cold weather outfit. Risking the Tower for her proper cold weather cloak was out of the question.

She entered the shelter and lit a magical brazier she had brought with her for warmth with a flick of her wrist. Then she retrieved the broken half of the weather stick she’d recovered from the shattered mesa from its hiding place beneath her sleeping bag. It had to be the cause of this unusual weather, she just knew it, but why and how to fix it eluded her. All she could do was work on the problem.

Every other problem could wait. It was all her fault, anyway. All of the problems lately were.

She sat cross-legged and focused her mind, but was interrupted by the sound of crunching snow outside. She sat perfectly still. The intruder was… cautious. Not unfriendly, but with some trepidation, as if they were working up their nerve for something.

“Raven? I know you’re in there. I want to come in. May I?”

Raven froze. Jinx? How had she found her? She let seconds pass by, saying nothing, hoping Jinx would simply go away.

“If you don’t tell me to go away, I’m coming in. Ten seconds.”

Raven tried, but found that she couldn’t form the words, instead counting the seconds with pinpoint precision in her head. A hair after ten, Jinx moved to enter the tent. Raven turned away, keeping her hood up.

She heard Jinx settle in a few feet away. “So uh… You’re wearing my old boots?”

Raven pulled her feet closer and covered them up with her cloak. “You left them here,” she said quietly. “When you cleaned the campsite. Before I took it.”

“I was sure I’d left them at the gym and someone had taken them,” Jinx muttered. “So how’s a mile in my shoes been?”

Raven didn’t answer. Jinx sighed.

“Obviously we have some things to talk about,” she said. “Like… the hex, and stuff.”

Raven sighed back. “You broke up with me.”

“What? No! No. I just… why do you think I did that?”

“...You made it for your ex.”

“Oh, Raven, no, I didn’t mean-”

“If you didn’t mean it that way, maybe you should have,” Raven snapped at her. “I deserve it.”

Jinx lapsed into silence, and Raven did her best to try to ignore her confusion and guilt. The silence stretched on uncomfortably.

“...To answer your question,” Raven said in a low tone, “it turns out stealing gets easier the more often you do it. Food. Clothes. And stuff.” She clutched at her arms.

“Oh. And stuff, huh.” Raven felt a little good humor emanating from Jinx, and suppressed her own.

“...Not that kind.”

“Right. I getcha.” Raven felt Jinx’s mind practically whirring as it searched for words for the complicated yarn of emotions churning in it. She was silent, giving Jinx the time.

“So, uh, Robin found me,” Jinx started. “Two days ago. He dodged my spell since he was on guard for me, well, doing what I did. And he asked me if I knew where you were, and that caught me off guard.” She paused. “Did you really leave a day after the big fight?”

“...Yes.”

“You know, I… I was pretty calm by day two. Third day, I tried to call you. Day five, I was getting anxious. Like maybe you didn’t want to see me again. Then day eight, Robin shows up. Have you really been out here by yourself for ten whole days?”

“...As long as I need to be.” Raven looked down at the ground. “Did he apologize to you?”

“He said it could wait until after you were safe. I guess you two are more alike than I thought.”

Raven frowned, but allowed Jinx space to continue.

“It didn’t occur to me until today that you might be here. But it makes sense. It was your secret spot first, before you showed it to me. So I guess the question is… why?”

“...Why, what?”

“Why this trouble? What are you even doing out here?”

Raven closed her eyes. “In ten days, the breaking of the weather stick has caused a storm large enough to cover Jump City. At the rate it grows daily from its epicenter, in ten more days it will cover most of the western seaboard. In ten more days after that, the eastern. I need to stop it.”

“Uh. Okay, that’s scary, but-”

“And I can’t do it around the others because I don’t think I can be a Titan anymore and I can’t afford the distraction.”

Raven heard Jinx suck in her breath through her teeth. “What do you mean, not a Titan anymore? What makes you say that?”

“...Do you remember that chat in the diner?”

“Yeah. I think about it a lot, actually.”

“I said that night that for a lot of us, our motivation is a sense of justice. But that’s not true for me anymore. It may never have been.”

Jinx leaned in closer. Raven flinched away, and Jinx stopped. Raven did her best to block out the concern and hurt Jinx was radiating.

“...I am motivated by fear. That is who I am. Fear of losing control. Fear of being discovered. Fear of being shunned or cast out. Fear of even telling my friends things they should know because I might hurt them. I am a hero because I’m afraid of what I might be if I wasn’t, of what would happen to the world. You’ve seen a glimpse of that world. You once said you felt you had no choice but to be a villain. I never had a choice but to be a hero. If you think my Anger has a hold over my mind, it is nothing compared to my Fear. And if that’s my motivation, I don’t deserve to be a Titan.”

“Raven-”

“I had a crisis of faith because deep down, I knew I didn’t believe in what I was doing. I was doing it by rote. My kind is motivated by their base instincts, and there is no emotion in my head named Justice. That is simply-”

Raven wasn’t quick enough to evade Jinx’s hug. She belatedly realized tears had begun falling from her eyes.

_None of that is true, Raven._

Raven was startled. _You… we’re not wearing the earrings. How is this possible?_

“Maybe you ate too much of my soul to let go,” Jinx whispered, holding her tightly. “It didn’t work until we touched. But you’re wrong.”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, hush. If you didn’t believe in justice, would you seriously be out here trying to fix this problem all by yourself? You wouldn’t be able to feel guilty. You’d shrug and move on, like I used to. And I know you can’t do that, because I can’t look past that anymore.”

“...What?”

“A week ago I stopped a robber stealing a purse from an old lady. That’s how it started, by just not being able to look the other way. Then I tried to hold up a convenience store and I couldn’t go through with it. I pickpocketed some rich asshole and the first thing I did with the money was give it to a homeless person. I had to ask him for a hundred back so I could eat, Raven. I kind of hate this.”

“I’m… sorry?” Raven tried to keep her confusion out of her voice and failed.

“See, the thing is, once I knew the difference between a right way to treat people and a wrong way, since I learned about that kindness you saw in me, I can’t pick the wrong way. I just can’t and live with myself anymore. And you’re so twisted up inside with guilt and a need to make things right that I couldn’t possibly see it as anything but what it is. Even if I could go back to my old life now, I wouldn’t. And I can see, plain as day, that you can’t step into my old shoes and be okay with it either.”

Raven finally turned around to look at Jinx. She had cut her hair shorter, keeping it at roughly waist length, and from her double-lidded eyes, tears were streaming down her face.

“I cast that hex thinking you’d just break it when you felt like it and come talk to me but that’s not who you are. I should have remembered that day at the parade, where you looked like your world was ending because we had one stupid fight. You thought I’d rejected you. I’m so sorry.”

Raven finally relented and hugged her back. “I’m sorry too,” she whispered.

They held each other close, taking comfort in each other, and neither of them cared how long it took.

“It was also my fault the staff broke,” Jinx said after an indeterminate time. “It’s only fair that I help fix this.” She reached into a pocket and retrieved the other half of the broken stick. “I didn’t even really think about why I kept this. I’ve mostly been taking out my frustrations on it.”

Raven picked up her discarded half and held the broken ends together. “...It looks like a pretty clean break. If it were a bone, it would be fairly easy for me to heal, given time.”

Jinx looked Raven in the eyes. “It couldn’t possibly be that simple. Could it?”

Jinx and Raven looked each other in the eyes, then as if by some unspoken signal joined the two halves of the broken staff together. Jinx grabbed the break and began the healing spell, the white light softly enveloping her hand.

Raven hesitantly reached out, looking into Jinx's eyes as if to ask permission. Jinx nodded encouragingly, and Raven placed her hand on top of Jinx's, casting her healing magic, the two spells quickly intertwining into one.

Raven gasped in surprise as the break began to heal, the broken fibers knitting together as strong as they had been before. Then, much to their mutual surprise, the iron bands around the staff broke away as a leaf sprouted at one end. Then a second, and a third. The end facing Jinx sprouted a root-like tendril that gently tried to wrap itself around Jinx's hand. She batted it away, but two more formed.

"Oh dang. What do we do, Raven?"

"...What do you usually do with a sapling?"

Jinx smiled and quickly crawled out of the shelter, Raven swiftly following her. She took a few steps and then thrust the tendril sprouting end at the snowy earth. As soon as they hit the earth, the staff's growth exploded into action, so quickly that it forced Jinx backwards into Raven's arms. Roots burst into the freezing earth and the staff quickly began to resemble a proper tree, its limbs sprouting green, luscious leaves reaching into the sky.

"Raven! Look!"

As they watched, the grey clouds parted above the clearing, dissipating in a great circle across the city. The evening sun shone in a clear blue sky, and soon they both began to feel its warmth. The wind and snow stopped, and neither of them needed to look to know that the same was true for the entire city.

"...What just happened?" Raven asked.

"I guess we healed nature," Jinx replied, shrugging in Raven's arms. "Who knew it was that easy."

Raven lightly swatted Jinx's arm. They both grinned. Then Jinx's face took on a more serious demeanour.

"Raven…"

"Yes?"

Jinx looked at her face, eyes roaming as if to take in every detail, both sets of eyelids blinking rapidly. It was a habit Raven adored.

"I love you, Raven."

In the distance, a branch cracked and fell heavily to the ground In response to Raven's emotions.

"I…" she swallowed. "I love you too, Jinx."

Jinx kissed her nose once, slowly, and drew back just a little. "Would you like to go out with me?" She asked.

"I would."

"Okay." There was no need for empathic sensation; they both felt Jinx's heart pounding so hard that her body shook with the beat. "Can I call you my girlfriend?

"...You can call me anything you want, Jinx. But I like girlfriend."

Tears formed in Jinx's eyes, and she buried her face in Raven's chest, clinging to her tightly under the boughs of the magical tree.

Jinx called Robin on a Titan communicator she’d been given as they exited the park. Raven didn’t take in a lot of the conversation, instead focusing entirely on Jinx, drinking her in with her senses like someone stranded in a desert.

“Well,” Jinx said, closing the communicator. “Robin isn’t happy, but he understands. Apparently he took a leave of absence himself once?”

Raven smiled fondly. “...We all rifled through his stuff and dressed up as him while he was gone. I still think I looked great.”

Jinx looked at her with wide, shining eyes and a massive grin.

“...Yes, Jinx, there are pictures.”

“I can’t wait to see them. Anyway, I guess we better figure out a place for you to stay.”

“...Can’t I just stay where you are?”

“I’m still as homeless as the last time you saw me, babe.”

Raven looked at Jinx reproachfully, but before she could say more, Jinx had an idea.

“Oh! I think I know just the place! Hang on!” She retrieved the communicator again and punched in a number, holding it to her ear instead of looking at the screen. “Hey, Kate, how’s things? Don’t worry about how I got this number, listen, I have something of an emergency…”

It took shockingly little time to reach the Jump City suburbs to find the correct house. It looked nice, safe and boring, in Jinx’s loud estimation. Jinx rang the doorbell for them, and after a few moments, Em answered.

“Heya, Em!” Jinx said cheerfully.

“Hey,” she said, nodding once. “I called my dads and explained everything. They’re okay with housing Raven in the guest room.”

“Is that them?” Came a familiar feminine voice from inside the house. A flustered Kate quickly emerged behind Em. “Oh, wow, I can’t believe we’ll be staying at the same place!”

“You three are gonna have fun,” Jinx said cheerfully.

“...Jinx,” Raven said, holding tightly onto Jinx’s hand. “You need a place too.”

“I know how to take care of myself. It’s a bit much to ask to house us both, right?”

“It really is not,” Em said. Jinx ignored her.

“I’m never more than a short call away. I can give you the earring back and we can keep talking that way, right?”

Raven held even more tightly to Jinx’s hand. “Why don’t you want to stay?”

Jinx deftly slipped her hand out of Raven’s grip. Raven blinked, not understanding how she’d done it. “I would, but like… I’m not good with accepting charity, alright? I pay for my own food and room and that’s that.”

Raven frowned. Jinx had been annoyed at the idea of accepting free food from Raven. It had always been framed in the form of a contest between them.

“Oh!” Kate said. “Would it be okay if you paid for the room and your food?”

“I’m tapped out, so-”

“I’ve still got most of the money that you uh, lent me! I can pay you it back and you can use that!”

Jinx blinked hesitantly.

“Good things come around,” Raven said, smiling at Jinx.

“Sometimes,” said Robin.

“Gah!” Jinx was startled, and so was everyone else aside from Raven. “How- When did you- What?!”

Robin stood some distance away in the driveway. “I’m here to make sure Raven’s okay. And to talk with you. If that’s alright.”

Kate and Em looked at each other and left the scene. “We’ll get the room ready!” Kate said, leaving the three of them alone.

Robin walked up to the two girls, looking at them in turn, then settling on Jinx. “It’s time I apologized to you for how we- how I, treated you.”

“I mean, it’s alright-”

Robin shook his head. “When I suggested keeping you prisoner, I told myself it was for good reasons. One of them was that I knew about the bounty on your head and wanted to keep you there for your own protection, hoping to draw Rancid out of hiding. I didn’t tell you that part of our plan because I felt like you didn’t need to know. But when you reacted the way you did, I knew I had done the wrong thing. You extended trust in Raven, and to us, and I should have trusted Raven’s judgment and faith in you.”

Jinx looked awkward. “I mean. You couldn’t have known.”

“I pretty much already knew after our conversation. So when I saw Starfire hide that keycard under that bowl, I chose to look the other way. And I need to apologize for that too. We should have given you more support.”

“Robin, it’s… it’s alright. I was still a criminal.”

Robin shook his head. “No. What separates us from criminals is how we treat each other. I knowingly treated you like a hostage and bait and justified it with a thin rationalization. That’s something a villain would do, not a Titan. I’ve crossed that kind of line before, and I rely on my friends to know when I have.”

“Starting to see where Raven gets it from,” Jinx said ruefully. Raven blushed.

Robin extended his hand. Jinx looked at it, then took it. “There is room in the Tower if you ever need a place to stay. Even for just a short while.”

Jinx looked at him, surprised. “Thanks. I guess.”

Then Robin turned to Raven.

“Hey.”

“...Hey.”

“I’m not happy you lied to all of us, you know.”

“...Yeah. I know.”

Robin surprised the girls by enveloping Raven in a hug. Raven held Robin back after recovering from her shock.

“And you really did smoke marijuana with Jinx, didn’t you?”

Raven rolled her eyes. “...Yes.”

“We’ll talk about that when you’re back.” Robin took a step back, looking her in the eye. “I hope we get to see you soon, Raven.”

“...Thank you, Robin.”

Robin nodded, then walked towards the curb. “You have the communicator if there’s trouble,” he said, and was swiftly gone from sight. From somewhere they heard the sound of a motorcycle revving and driving away.

“Yeah, I know who to call,” Jinx said to herself. “That was not what I expected.”

“...I told you he’s a nice guy.”

“So you did. Wanna go see our room and pig out on cereal while we talk about our feelings?”

Raven smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. We can start with how you keep joking about asking Starfire out.”

“I’m polyamorous,” Jinx answered immediately. “I’m more interested in your plural system, like how many personas you got floating in there.”

“...You’re what? My what?”

“Oh, guess we’re both gonna learn a thing or two!”

They went inside and closed the door behind them.

One month later…

Jinx looked up at the Tower apprehensively. “I guess we’re doing this.”

“Getting cold feet?”

“Oh, you know, asking to join the Titans, doing whatever legal crap Robin is going to demand, upending my entire life, no big.”

“...You already upended your life.”

“No, you did. I just recovered gracefully.”

Raven swatted her arm. “...Dork.”

“Look, just… I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Maybe this won’t work out the way we want. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a Titan. I just don’t want that to affect us, you know?”

“...You get along fine with everyone. The visits in the past month proved that much. Starfire really hit it off with Em, even.” They had all been very amused to learn that in Starfire’s mind, there was no distinction between earth literature and earth fanfiction. She had already read some of Em’s works before meeting her.

“Yeah, but… I mean, what if I don’t make it onto the team?”

“...Jinx, we met each other as enemies, became friends, and were kissing each other while we were on opposite sides of the law. Why would you not being on my team even remotely stop us from seeing each other?”

Jinx shifted from one bare foot to the other. “But what if some of my old self comes back and ruins it?”

Raven played with Jinx’s horns. She’d decided to go back to them after all. “...I’m afraid some part of myself will come out and ruin everything too, all of the time. I’d just rather face that fear together with you.”

Jinx smiled and took a deep breath, then rang the doorbell. They’d decided to make a proper entrance for Raven's return. “Alright. I trust you.”

“And I believe in us,” Raven said fondly.

Jinx didn’t know what the future held. With her luck, it usually wasn’t any good. She held Raven’s hand. If nothing else, she wouldn’t be facing it alone again.

The door opened.

**The End**


End file.
